Relationships

Hinge announced that it has launched a new feature called “Dating Intentions” to encourage users to be more honest and upfront about what kind of relationship they are looking for.

According to Tech Crunch, the feature allows users to select a dating goal from a drop-down menu, which will be displayed in their profile. Some options include “life partner,” “long-term,” “open to short-term,” “short term, open to long-term,” “short term,” and “figuring out my dating goals.”

Online daters have grown increasingly frustrated with forming relationships that go nowhere, or that are layered in ambiguity. Some find it difficult to ask their dates what they are looking for in a relationship in the early stages, which leads to a lot of misunderstanding and heartache down the line, after they’ve invested emotionally in the relationship. Hinge hopes the new feature will help alleviate that, or at least help spark a conversation before the first date so both parties know what to expect.

A new study found that men who pose shirtless on dating apps give the impression that they engage in risky sexual behavior, and are viewed as less competent by potential dates.

According to the study, shirtless pictures are a turnoff for women, because they assume these men are having more casual sex, which poses increased risk for the women they date. Women also tended to objectify the men in these photos, and viewed them as less competent as a result.

According to PsyPost, researchers surveyed a relatively small sample - 567 undergraduate students in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25. Participants were shown one of eight mock Tinder profiles featuring an image of the same man, a white young male from the waist up, and asked their thoughts about attractiveness, social appeal, and competence. The profiles were manipulated to emphasize differences - a muscular body vs non-muscular, shirtless vs wearing a shirt, and the person advertising in his profile that he’s looking for a relationship vs. casual sex.   

Bumble is focusing beyond its popular dating app and adding a new social networking feature to its BFF platform.

Bumble BFF uses the same swipe-based matching found on the dating app, but will expand options for users to include networking groups where they can connect and chat with each other based on topics of interest, according to Tech Crunch. Bumble had hinted that it was testing this new feature and it was “doing well,” according to its first quarter earnings call.

While Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd didn’t offer many details about the new feature on the call, she did describe it was a way to help “people to discover and get to know each other around shared joys and common struggles.” She also noted that over 40 percent of “active BFF users” were checking out the new feature and the various networking groups, sharing that its one-month retention was more than 75 percent, according to Tech Crunch.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and other popular social platforms, has frozen hiring of new staff for some of its divisions, including Facebook Dating.

Meta’s stock price is down almost 43 percent this year, and the company has gotten serious about streamlining its business. It has stopped hiring for certain engineering roles, but also for recruiters and low-level data scientists, according to The Verge. Facebook Dating has had disappointing results despite high expectations when it first launched.

Reviews show that many Facebook Dating users were having problems matching when they used the service and blamed the problem on fake profiles proliferating on the app. Considering the number of dating apps which use Facebook’s authentication system to verify new profiles, it should be easier for the company to get rid of fake accounts to create a better experience for users.

Dating app Hinge announced it has started a fund to support aspiring therapists and counselors from the LGBTQ and BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) communities. It will be providing $10,000 in scholarship to ten people towards their education in these fields, according to Mashable.  

From May 18 through June 17, applications for the fund will be open to U.S. college and graduate students in the mental health field, who can apply via the website HingeAdvocatesofTomorrow.com. According to Mashable, applicants complete the form and respond to two prompts about the mental health and wellness needs of the LGBTQ and/or BIPOC communities, and from there, twenty finalists will be selected. The finalists will be asked to create a video about how the scholarship will support their individual journey as well as their career.

Hinge has also collaborated with artist and mental health advocate Fariha Rosin, who authored a book on mental health resources for marginalized communities. She said in the company’s press release: “These times can be really dark and overwhelming in a lot of ways and that’s why we need mental health advocates. This initiative is helping people become the light bearers, creating generational ripple effects of healing.”

Emma Hernan, one of the stars of reality show Selling Sunset, created an Internet frenzy when she revealed in a new episode that she and Ben Affleck matched on dating app Raya.

She told fellow reality star Chrishell Stause in the episode that the actor “may or may not have asked to grab coffee a few times” as they were messaging over the app. She also noted that he initiated conversation by bringing up their shared background of growing up in Boston. Stause replied that Hernan could have “foiled Bennifer,” and Hernan agreed that “maybe that wouldn’t have happened” if she had followed through and kept messaging him, according to E! News.

Affleck is now engaged to actress Jennifer Lopez, which caused fans to speculate on the timing and whether or not he cheated on Lopez if he was still texting with Hernan. The rumors grew when Lopez posted a photo on Instagram wearing a short red dress and boots stating that she was going out for a “girl’s night.”