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Comment by Eumenes | Hacker News Reader

There's nothing wrong with watching TV/Netflix in your free time. Its a free country. But, don't be surprised if alot of prospective dates to find that boring or milquetoast. Dating profiles seem to be written by ChatGPT, for both men and women, and the most common included "hobby" is generally, Netflix. Imo, it screams: low effort.

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Another type of profile some might find boring are those where the person’s hobbies are those that are the area’s “defaults”, like a profile for someone living in the Pacific Northwest mentioning that they hike… nothing wrong with that as a hobby, but when almost everybody in the area on the app has that as their hobby too it’s not going to help you stand out.

Wow so not only am I being told to get myself a hobby but it has to be so unique that nobody else is doing it?

It’s no wonder these dating apps aren’t working when standards are so high!

Ideally you need at least two hobbies: one that you and your Tinder match have in common, so you can do it together, and the other one that is weird and unique so you can impress them, and sustain their interest :-D

With the way dating apps work, you’ve gotta try to make an impression because they make users feel embarrassed for choice. If your profile is basically the same as everybody else’s you’re probably gonna get swiped left unless you’ve got outstanding looks and/or eye-catching photos.

Just put yourself in the shoes of someone who might see your profile. If I’m a bearded guy who enjoys hiking, Netflix, and IPAs what reason do they have to swipe right on me compared to the other 50 bearded guys who also enjoy hiking, Netflix, and IPAs?

Watching TV barely qualifies as a hobby at all, it's something you passively do in a pure-consumption mode. A common hobby that involves you going through a creative process is much better than a pure-consumption 'hobby'. Even "I like to discuss the TV I watch" would be a huge improvement.

Why is this a surprise? Dating app success is about your ability to market yourself and stand out from the crowd.

Hiking, Netflix, concerts, and brunch probably covers 95% of young adults in the PNW. Personally, defining your personality by watching TV is objectively boring and lazy. Dating is alot about marketing yourself, which I'm sure dating coaches would agree on, so yeah, I'd encourage people to aim higher and at least make stuff up that sounds more interesting.

Not impossible, you gotta spice it up. Don't just say "I love Barbie" say "I love Barbie for its loud, brash feminist message and absolutely masterful set props to portray the Barbie world". There, you still watch Netflix but you show you think deeply about the media around you and get out your political philosophy without making it sound like you only think in politics.

You should probably pick up other hobbies, but a lot of everything in life is all about presentation. You kinda need to do the opposite for tech a lot of the time unless you are specifically going for a tech oriented partner; don't describe your job as you would to a co-worker ("I'm a software engineer who works on the pathfinding algorithms in Google maps"), but give a quick elevator pitch ("I work at Google and I help figure out your destination"... and sure insert some zinger if you're clever).

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