And got better matches. Is the algorithm the problem, or the men?
Do you know how humbling it is to get to the very end of the men on a dating app? When you have literally swiped through them all and have to start over, looking at the same guys you passed on, waiting for new ones to join? This happens regularly on Hinge because I only look at the Black guys. I’ve been swiping past some of these men for years. Like, “John, 38, no job in bio” and I have rejected each other since the Trump administration.
I’ve been online dating for a little over a decade now. When I first started, at 30, I didn’t really need the apps. I lived in New York and I had youth on my side. But then I moved to Los Angeles four years ago, where there just aren’t a lot of Black people period — let alone single Black men — and the apps became part of my daily routine. I have the paid versions of both Hinge and Bumble, and I go on two to three dates per week, but I’ve done as many as seven when my daughter was out of town. I’ve alternated between treating dating as a job (must! find! love!), a sport (gotta play to win), and a hobby (something to do so I’m not in the house bored).
I’ve started to feel like I need to outwit the algorithm — I can’t see John again. Recently I saw a TikTok from a Black woman who said that when she changed her race to “White” on Hinge, she was presented with better men. I immediately gave it a try and was shocked to find that in addition to the guys I usually saw, there were men who were more handsome and better educated and who had better jobs than those who usually showed up in my search results.
Some of the men I was able to swipe through had previously only been available in the “Standouts” section, which Hinge describes as “outstanding content from people most your type.” Premium Hinge members get a daily list of Standouts, and if you want to match them, you have to send them a rose.
Now I’m left wondering if this new crop of men popped up because the app’s algorithm codes white women as more desirable, and thus presents them with the “best” options, or if these men are just searching for white women. Neither would surprise me. It’s well known that Black women have dismal experiences on dating apps: User data collected by OkCupid in 2009 and 2014 showed that men rated Black women less attractive than women of other races. Meanwhile, college-educated Black women are 53 percent less likely to marry a well-educated man than white women are. Perhaps Hinge doesn’t think that the most popular guys on there would want us. But also, I live in L.A. Most of the Black guys you’ll see out on dates are out with women who aren’t Black, and Black women who live here can tell you stories of simply trying to speak to a Black man and being iced out.
But while the men I’ve seen have been better, I’ve had less luck on Hinge than usual since going white. I’ve matched with about the same number of men I usually would, but I’ve had fewer interactions with this group of men than I usually do with my matches. I’ve talked with a few guys who just stopped responding. I had two dates scheduled for this week, both of which were canceled; one guy blew me off a few hours before, while the other one claimed he had to go out of town on a work trip and couldn’t make our Friday-night plans. I’m texting with a cute 31-year-old who just moved here from London, but I generally wouldn’t think of someone that young as a serious romantic candidate.
Now I’m left wondering if this new crop of men popped up because the app’s algorithm codes white women as more desirable, and presents them with the “best” options, or if these men are just searching for white women.
I’m amused at the thought of men who are looking exclusively for white women coming across my profile and seeing my Black ass. I would imagine they’d just assume that I’m biracial and checked off multiple races. I’ve noticed that white men who are definitely not mixed still show up in my results sometimes, so maybe I’m not the only one race fishing out here.
Ashleigh, an acquaintance of mine who lives in New York City, decided to give it a try too. She’s a 34-year-old Black sex coach (she helps people live their best sexual lives, similar to a therapist) who’s been off and on Hinge for six years. Her settings allow her to view people of all genders and all races, and she uses the free version, which limits how many people you can swipe on per day.
In the past, Ashleigh has found that she doesn’t match with very many people on Hinge compared to Tinder, where she’s more successful. When she does match with cis men, she finds they frequently introduce themselves with sexually charged comments, often commenting on her body type. Since changing her race to white, she says that generally hasn’t been the case. “They’re actually asking questions; they’re trying to get conversations started and flirt with me,” she says.
Ashleigh didn’t hide her race on her profile, so when men swipe on her, they see a visibly Black woman listed as white. No one has mentioned it yet. “I’ve been prepared to have the conversation,” she says. “I figured someone would make a joke about it or something.”
She too is seeing men who generally would not come up in her feed, also with better jobs and education, some of whom live in fancy parts of town. “There are a lot more travel photos,” she laughs. While she’s enjoyed the conversations she’s had with guys so far, there’s only one she’s currently considering a date with, a 36-year-old day trader.
Does she think she’s simply seeing men who are looking to match with white women, or is the algorithm positioning her as more desirable? She says the truth is probably somewhere in the middle — after all, these apps are designed to keep us on there, spending money.
Unlike me, Ashleigh is not particularly pressed to find a partner and isn’t terribly bothered by the experiences she’s having on the apps (though she is offended at the possibility that Hinge may be intentionally showing white women “better” options). The same goes for two other women I spoke to who tried going white to see if their prospects would improve.
Alanna, a 24-year-old Black woman also based in L.A., changed her race to white on the app after seeing me post on X about my own experiment. Originally from Detroit, she too was startled by the bleak dating landscape faced by Black women in our city; she relocated here shortly after graduating college and hasn’t been on any dates since.
After changing her race, Alanna also found that she was presented with different Black men than she’d seen before: “Way more employed, and guys who actually took the time to answer the prompts. More real photos of them versus the memes I usually see.” She also got more likes from men, going from an average of one to three per week to four to five each day.
I tried the same experiment on Bumble, but the app doesn’t allow you to list race as criteria for your matches, and nothing seemed to change once I added a race; I’m still swiping through endless white guys looking for Black ones. As has been the case since I moved to L.A., the guys I match with on there are more actively engaged with me than the ones on Hinge are. (When I reached out to Hinge, a spokesperson got back to me promptly but didn’t offer much insight. “All daters receive a unique level of access, including the ability to see everyone who sends you a like so that you’re not mindlessly scrolling through profiles to find a match,” he wrote. “We show you who you are most likely to want to go on a date with — and who is likely to want to go on a date with you.”)
After about two months — and a lot of matches that went nowhere — I’ve finally changed my race back to Black. If I’m going to crash out on a dating app, I would rather do that as my true self. I still don’t know what to believe regarding my feed when I was listed as white. I’d hate to think the algorithm favors white women, but I think I’d be more disappointed to find out that I just stumbled across a bunch of Black guys who are looking for white girls. No matter what the truth is here, it’s ugly and speaks to the challenges Black women have when trying to date online, which are admittedly easier to bear than the ones that come with trying to date offline, at least in my city.
I take comfort in the fact that white women routinely take to TikTok and X to vent about how awful dating is for them too these days. Our issues can’t be entirely blamed on the apps; the men who are available to us are a factor, and many of them have no interest in courtship or treating women with care. For those of us who want to be partnered, it seems as though there’s no better option than dedicating hours to swiping and paying for the “premium” version of these platforms. I wish there was something better for me to do, but I can’t think of any other options, short of decentering men, and I’m not wise enough to do that. In spite of the evidence to the contrary, I do believe my prince is out there. I just hope I’m able to pop up on his feed.
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