If you use the dating app Hinge, and are secretly married, engaged or in a relationship, you could be about to be exposed. Hinge has released an update that will publish that information, taken from your Facebook account, to your profile. If a recent, headline-grabbing (but not entirely surprising) piece of research showing 42% of Tinder users are already spoken for is anything to go by, a lot of people could be in for a shock.
However, Hinge community manager Jean-Marie McGrath says only 1.6% of Hinge users are married or engaged, while 2% are in a relationship. “While this seems low,” she adds, “We want to ensure Hinge remains a trusted place for finding relationships. Hinge hopes the update will force the few people who aren’t being entirely truthful to be more open about their relationship status.
The company wants Hinge to be a place to build long-term relationships. If you’re looking for a hookup, perhaps dating apps like Down, Pure, Tinder and Skout would be a better choice. Like Tinder, Hinge shows profiles of single people nearby, and only matches you with friends of friends or third-degree connections.
Hinge was released in 2013 and is has subsequently been launched in a variety of U.S. cities and several countries around the world. Since it began, the app has apparently matched more than a million people up. Despite this, it is still waiting for the first Hinge wedding, although it claims to have been instrumental in an engagement, so it may not have much longer to long to wait. Hinge is available for iOS and Android.