‘Hotline’ Dating App Forces Users to Actually Call Each Other

A new dating app aims to force users to be more sociable by making them call the people that they match with.

Hotline attempts to break away from the usual dating app format by re-introducing one of the often missing features from dating apps: actual human interaction. Much like Tinder or OkCupid, users swipe right or left to choose prospective partners, and when two users have both swiped “yes” on each other, the app matches them together.

Hotline, however, then forces users to have a five-minute phone call with each other before enabling text chat in the app.

The app also innovates in other ways, allowing user profiles to feature videos and only allowing users to match with three people at a time. This is a conscious effort by the company to force users to think of the matches as actual people rather than commodities, according to the app’s creator, Sam Bellantyne. “Hotline wants you to stop swiping and start discerning,“ said the company in a press release.

Currently, the dating service is only available in New York City on iOS and costs $9 a month, but Bellantyne hopes to expand the service nationwide soon. The apps exclusivity shrinks the dating pool rather dramatically, a concept which in itself is attractive to some users hoping for quality over quantity.