What Is Group Hangouts on Tinder?

Group Hangouts lets you and a few friends form a Group on Tinder and swipe on other Groups of friends. Each Group shows up in Discovery with several members shown together, and when your Group matches another one, Tinder opens a chat for the whole group. You can also swipe right on one person to open a direct message with her.

A Group is you plus some friends, presented together. Other Groups see all of you at once in Discovery and decide on the whole crew.

Before your Group can see and swipe on others, it needs a minimum number of members and a dedicated activity and time. In other words, a Group is not only a set of faces. It comes with a plan attached, such as a particular outing on a particular evening.

When two Groups like each other, the result is one shared chat for everyone. That chat is where the details get settled.

Double Date is built for two friends at a time. You and one friend appear side by side and match with another pair, and the chat has four people in it.

Group Hangouts is the bigger version. More people are in each Group, and the activity and time are set up front, so the question from the start is whether the two Groups want to spend that evening together.

Both features let you swipe right on one person in a matched group or pair to open a private chat with her. The group chat stays open either way.

So the choice mostly comes down to your friends. If you have one close friend who is single and keen, a Double Date is simpler to organize and easier to keep personal. If you have a few friends who already go out together, a Group suits you better, because the plan you would have made anyway becomes the thing other Groups are saying yes to.

Tinder lists Group Hangouts as a free feature. It is offered in select markets only, so it will not appear on every account.

Tinder also says Boosts and Super Likes do not work within Groups. If you pay for a subscription, those extras do nothing for your Group, and nobody needs to upgrade to take part.

The fixed activity is the smartest part of the feature, and it lines up with long-standing advice on group dates.

dating advice lays out what makes a group outing work. It should be something fun for her, with a little moving around but not a marathon. It should keep you away from rooms full of loud, competitive men. The core group should stay small, around seven people at most, because bigger groups split into little clusters and people drift off. And the evening should have a natural end, so everyone leaves together instead of trickling away.

Their examples are the kind of thing a Group Hangout suits well: a small barbecue or bonfire, a wine tasting, a gallery opening. Anything where everyone sits in silence, like a movie, works against you, because nobody gets to talk.

The first rule is to talk to the whole group. a dating program's advice on meeting women in groups is that if you only pay attention to the one you like, her friends feel shut out, and she will side with them every time.

The second comes from a dating program too: give the group a better time than it was having before you arrived. Being the man who makes the evening fun does more for you than any effort to show off.

The third is to go easy on the flirting. dating advice recommends treating a group outing as mainly social, with some flirting mixed in, and saving the real push for a later date alone with her. Trying to charm one woman while also entertaining your friends means you do neither well.

The private chat exists for this moment, but time it well. Opening one in the first hour of a group chat can make her friends feel like spare parts.

The better moment is after the hangout. If you and one woman clearly got on, message her the next day with something from the evening and suggest a plan for just the two of you. The group did the hard part by getting you in the same place with low pressure. Your job afterwards is to turn that into a 1-on-1 date.

Tinder also asks that nobody shares private details, such as contact information, without consent from the other Group members. Ask before you pass anyone's number around.