Phone number, name, email, birthday. Those are the first four questions the online dating application Hinge asks when signing up for a new profile. Easy enough, there’s only one answer for each. Then comes the photos section, and the app demands at least four but will accept up to six. Finally, the prompts: a section of open-ended questions intended to solicit the sharing of engineered fun facts and personality traits.
“Dating me is like,” one reads, followed by “Worst idea I’ve ever had.” There are currently upwards of 95 options that all sound like the questions a therapist would ask during onboarding. Then there’s the one question that should elicit mild concern for anyone still using it: “What I order for the table.”
As much as I try not to judge, I can’t resist the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes when I see this prompt. Although it’s seemingly innocuous, any answer is a red flag, or at least an ick. If your response is chips and guacamole, there’s a chance you’ll come off as cheap and basic. Oysters are divisive, consider the outcry around the woman who downed 48 oysters at a restaurant in Atlanta. Maybe a better choice would be some type of pickle — pickles, after all, are undoubtedly cool — but that may come off as trying too hard.
With any response, you run the risk of coming across as overly genuine or worse, of having bad taste, which makes answering the restaurant-focused prompt less about what you would order in any mealtime scenario, and more about what you think your potential matches might want you to say about what you would order. Choose tequila shots because you think people would see that as fun, but know that it could be read as unoriginal. Or pick a crudo to show off your raw fish knowledge, but risk being accused of being pretentious. Even the best-intentioned answers are diminished in the harsh light of being perceived in an online dating profile.
And yet, this prompt continues to be one of the reigning choices on the app. It’s so popular that people have taken to Reddit to ask why so many people use it, and it’s even spawned satirical TikToks.
It is a tempting prompt to choose on Hinge, which markets itself as “the dating app designed to be deleted.” After all, dining out is an essential part of compatibility — if you can’t eat together, there’s no hope for the rest of it. And unlike Tinder, Hinge purports to offer a place to fall in love based on more than just a flurry of photos and swipes. Finding someone who could order well for the table, or someone who would appreciate your ordering seems like a net positive — but that hinges (pun intended) on the answer being truthful.
Being on a dating app is all about presenting the best version of yourself, or the most desirable. There is always some degree of dissonance between real life and online presentation. Profiles are built with a specific end goal in mind, and while trying to devise a strategic answer to ordering for the table isn’t quite catfishing, it’s also not entirely honest.
But the real problem with the question is that it says nothing about who you are, no matter how truthful your answer. As the designated orderer at most meals with friends, I understand the pressure of ordering well. Staring down a group of expectant hungry faces with the menu in hand does sometimes feel pretty make-it-or-break-it. Even so, I would never lead a conversation with what I order for the table. Telling someone that I’m a Dune fan would likely be more illuminating than saying I often order fries to share.
Admittedly, ordering well is a skillful combination of picking the right flavors and textures to build a meal and making sure enough food is ordered so that nobody leaves hungry. It also means considering the group’s particular preferences, which is an objectively good quality to have. But on Hinge, it’s impossible to make a well-intentioned choice around ordering for the table without the penetrating knowledge that it is all for show — it’s a figurative table and an engineered answer that doesn’t compare to the joy of a good meal. So do the smart thing and pick another prompt, then show off those alleged ordering skills in person. Your dating life will thank you for it.
