How to Answer the Hinge Prompt "The One Thing You Should Know About Me Is"

Say something plain about yourself in a cocky, specific way, or hint at a story she will want to ask about. On a live call our coach reviewed a student's answer. It called the writer one of only seven unconventional men in their city. He was attracted to intelligence, beauty and compassion, and better looking than the other six. The coach loved it. It took the line everyone wants to say, which is dull on its own, and made it funny and unique.

The student's trait was boring. Attraction to intelligence, beauty and compassion is what nearly every man would put, and written straight it would disappear.

What made it good was the frame. By turning the trait into a small joke about being one of very few men like this, the answer said the same thing in a way no one else would. The coach called it a creative, very good response, and contrasted it with the other two prompts on that profile. Those read as lists, a resume-style summary of life goals and a long description of a typical Sunday. The advice for those two was to show, not tell.

On another call a student answered with something close to this. They had turned an obsession into a very fun career, though it sometimes got them recognized in public. The coach liked it as an open loop. A woman wonders what the obsession is, and being recognized in public is a nice high-status detail.

The coach also had a note. It would be better with a specific, and the hard part is adding one without closing the loop. The coach's example was music. Naming a field like that loses a little of the mystery but gains a lot of status. It still leaves a woman asking whether you are an artist, a producer, a manager or something else. That is a better kind of open loop, because she has something to ask about.

Our coaches draw a firm line between a random fact about your life and something that bears on dating. On a call about profile advice a student asked how to show relevance to a woman they had not met. The coach's answer was an example. If your answer is that you like the color red and were born in a particular state, it is irrelevant to dating, even if she happens to share the state.

If your answer says what you tend to do in a relationship, it is much more relevant. It is about the woman's experience, and about who she might be with you. If the line is about you and her and dating, it is relevant. If it is about a random fact of your life, it is not.

The same prompt works as a tool on the other side of the screen. In one of the coach's date breakdowns, the woman had answered the one-thing prompt with a line about reading a book a month. The coach opened with that answer and not with her photos, because using a prompt feels less superficial than a photo and gives you more to work with.

The coach's format was simple: the photos caught my attention, but this might keep it. It is an old format, the coach said, that had been used for years for first messages, and it was easy to approve of in this case. That tells you what a good answer gives a man to work with. Hers handed over an easy topic, and so can yours.

The coach was also candid about the follow-up. Asking what genre of book she would be was a little dicey, because it asks a lot of her and leads toward a platonic, if deep, conversation. If you are confident turning a good conversation flirty, it is fine. Otherwise go flirtier early. Write your answer so the conversation it starts has somewhere to go.

Most profiles are three prompts, and the one-thing stem is one of the places men waste a slot with a resume line. A trait with an attitude, or a hook with a detail, is worth more than a list of hobbies.

Do not lead with the safest fact you have. Lead with the version a woman could repeat to a friend in one sentence.

Ask yourself three questions. Is the trait one that a hundred men would write, and have I given it a twist? Does the answer leave one question she could ask? And is it about what dating me would be like, not just about me?

If you can say yes to all three, you have an answer that is specific, relevant and interesting, which is the standard our coaches hold every prompt to.