Is Hinge Good for Men Over 50?

Often, yes, if you want real dates and are willing to put some effort into your photos and your answers. Hinge is free, it is built around conversation, and it lets you say what kind of relationship you want. What nobody outside the company can tell you is how many women in your area fit your age range, because Hinge does not publish an age breakdown. So the honest answer is to test it for two weeks and count what happens.

The design suits a man who is better at talking than at tapping. You start a conversation by liking or commenting on one photo or one written answer, and a like with a comment is more likely to get a reply. That puts your first message at the center, and writing a good one is a skill that comes with age and attention, not with youth.

Hinge also has Dating Intentions, a setting where you say what kind of relationship you are looking for. Women who want something serious can see that you do too, and it saves both of you an evening that was never going to work.

You choose your own age range in Dating Preferences. Hinge does not sort by age for you, so set the range to the women you would honestly like to meet and let the app do the filtering.

Hinge does not say how its members divide by age, and a forum post that quotes a percentage is guessing. The number that matters is local, and it depends on your city, your distance setting and the age range you pick.

You can measure it yourself in a week. Open the app on several different days, set your range and distance to what you would actually accept, and count how many women you would be glad to meet appear. If you see plenty, Hinge is working for you. If you run out in two days, widen your distance a little or add another app.

a dating coach's advice on dating when you are older starts from a point that many men miss. In his video on dating after 30, he says you have gained value with age, in worldliness, experience, intelligence and understanding of women. The problem is that you are around fewer eligible women than you were in school or in your twenties.

His fix is to go out of your way to be where those women are, and to treat online dating as a supplement, not the whole plan. He calls it plausible proximity: being around women you are interested in in a way that does not feel awkward, such as a coffee shop near a campus, not the campus itself.

For Hinge, that means giving the app a fair share of your week and not all of it. Use it, and also join something where the women you like show up: a class, a league, a club or a business event.

a dating coach describes two types of older guys. One is worldly, successful and interesting, and the other has simply gotten older. A woman decides which one you are within seconds of seeing your photos.

Your clothes and your build speak for you there. He says to avoid clothes that are ten years out of date and to avoid dressing like a teenager at 45. Aim for elegant, stylish and suited to a sophisticated older man. He also says to get in shape, because a man who looks younger than his age has a clear edge over one who looks older.

On Hinge, that translates into photos taken recently, in daylight, with your face clear and your clothes in good shape. A picture from ten years ago is a bad idea for the oldest reason: she will meet the man in the photo and then the man at the table.

Your taste in women probably did not age at the same pace you did. If you are 55, women in their forties may still attract you more than women in their fifties. a dating coach says that is normal, and that the age gap question therefore comes up.

His advice is to let her know and like you before age becomes a factor. Do not bring up the number yourself, and write your answers so a woman reading them gets a sense of you first. Your age sits in your details on the page, so you cannot hide it, but you can make the rest of the page more interesting than a number.

How you frame it matters too. A man who is relaxed about the gap, and who comes across as a worldly man with plenty on his plate, is received very differently from a man who is nervous about it. coach also points out that some women actively prefer older men.

Older men often have the advantage of being able to talk to a stranger without fear. Use it.

Read her answers, find one specific thing and write one or two sentences about it. Skip "hello, how are you," which asks her to carry the conversation. Ask a question she would enjoy answering, add a light remark of your own, and suggest a time and place once the chat has some warmth. a dating coach's method is to move from the app to a real plan within a handful of messages.

Reply the same day. A woman waiting on a slow answer has other men writing to her.

Fill in every prompt with something specific. Use three or four clear, recent photos with your face visible in the first. State your intentions in the Dating Intentions setting. Like only women you would genuinely meet, and add a comment to each like.

Then count likes sent, matches, real conversations and dates. If you get matches but not conversations, work on your first message. If you get conversations but not dates, suggest a plan earlier. If you get almost no matches, look at the first photo and the age range before anything else.

After two weeks you will know whether Hinge suits you, based on what happened in your city, not on someone else's opinion.