How to Answer the "I'll Brag About You to My Friends If" Prompt on Hinge

Finish it with something about her that you would be proud to show a friend, and describe it so anyone reading your profile can picture it. Do not finish it with a list of names she has to recognize. On a live call our coach reviewed an answer built from a string of thinkers, writers and scientists. The coach called it intellectually snobby and esoteric, and admitted not knowing most of the names. If the coach did not catch the references, a woman scrolling past will not either.

Our coaches teach that bragging about yourself with no prompt looks try-hard and needy, while bragging in response to a prompt reads as more organic. The prompt is not valuable on its own. It is useful as a vehicle for your best traits.

This stem is a vehicle for your standards. You are saying what kind of woman you would be proud to be seen with, and that tells her plenty about you with no self-promotion at all.

The reviewed answer named half a dozen public thinkers and scientists. The coach's reaction was honest and a little funny: a person who considers themselves educated and intelligent looked at that list and did not know most of the names.

That is the whole problem. A list of names turns the prompt into a quiz that she can fail, and if she does not know them she cannot tell what you are getting at. The coach's point was that an answer misses the mark when the references are too esoteric. It matters less whether she knows those specific people than whether she understands what you mean.

A coach's rewrite of a different prompt shows the fix. A student had written that they wanted an independent and affectionate woman. The coach said to drop the two broad labels and give an example of each, so the reader can see the person. The coach's own example was a woman who could coldly fire a man in the office and still cuddle with her boyfriend at night.

Apply that here. "I'll brag about you to my friends if you are smart and fun" is a pair of labels. "I'll brag about you to my friends if you can handle a hard call at work and still be the soft one at night" is a woman. Paint the picture, and she will see herself in it or see she is not it.

On the same call another student's answer for a related prompt crammed in a lot. The woman had integrity, knew when to break a few rules, stayed active and enjoyed an occasional philosophical talk. The coach called it too many ideas and too convoluted. The first idea could be a prompt by itself.

The coach also told that student not to explain which rules a woman should break. Leave it a mystery, because explaining it only makes it smaller. The same restraint helps here. Say the one quality and stop.

Another line from that profile dared women to beat the writer at pool, solve a differential equation or understand his research. The coach said it was not telling her anything good about him and amounted to saying women are not smart. It was the wrong kind of arrogance, closer to trying hard to be harsh than to being charming.

A brag prompt is the opposite move. It is supposed to flatter her and show your taste. If a line could be read as a test of whether she is good enough, cut it.

When our coaches teach prompt writing, they have a student pick five or six prompts that give a vehicle for their best traits, write each one as well as possible, and only then cut to the best three. Do not use this stem because it was the first one you saw. Use it if you have a real answer for it.

If you are unsure which of two answers is better for the same slot, run one for a while, switch to the other, and see whether your results change.

Read the line and ask three things. Could a stranger picture the woman in it? Does it flatter her without quizzing her? Is it one idea?

If all three are yes, you have an answer that lets her feel like someone worth bragging about, and that is the feeling the prompt is built to produce.