The worst I've ever felt using a dating app was around a year and a half ago, when I was travelling to a European city, and organised a date with someone I really enjoyed conversing with. When I returned to the app after a dinner, she had unmatched me, no explanation given... her profile wiped from my life. I was more unhappy than I thought I would be, and it made me reflect on how others might have felt even when I just stopped replying. I was just there, in front of them, but mute.

Almost all of my relationships in the 8 or so years I've spent dating have been through dating apps. I've come to rely on them, and, I hope, have improved my approach to them. I am now better at choosing a potential partner (whatever my needs are at that time), and more forthright in messaging and organising to meet-up (P.S. I've found Logan Ury a great source of wisdom and advice on dating/relationship building).

However, no matter how much I feel I have improved how I use them, one practice has remained consistent: Ghosting.

I have done it, my matches have done it, and, I expect dear reader, you have probably done it.

It's all too easy to lose interest in a conversation/person and simply to stop responding. It's common practice, and commonly accepted. This doesn't make it good behaviour, and it certainly doesn't mean it's the only way for this to be done.
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A different way forward 🚦

I would suggest two ways forward: a UI change on the side of the app, and a generalised behaviour change from the user

APP 📱

Most of these apps, in their various layouts and methodologies for matching users (beyond their dubious algorithms), are pretty good at doing their main job: Matching people who are attracted to one another. But, in the majority of cases - for when people decide they would not like to see one another... they suck. You are given two choices if you lose interest or decide this person isn't for you:

• Unmatch with no explanation given to the person.
• Ignore them and leave them to gradually drop down into a graveyard of other smiling sunset-bathed faces in your match queue.

I would argue that the bare minimum is for there to be an option to unmatch with a personalised message or to unmatch with a stock message provided by the app. I.e.
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"Hey June, I enjoyed talking but don't feel like pursuing this. All the best", Sarah

or

"Terri has decided to unmatch with you because _____ (chosen reason), we're sorry, but there's plenty more fish in the sea!"

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USER 🧍

This is something I've trialled in the past, but an option for the user is simply to say:
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"Hey Tamara, I had a great time talking but I'm not interested in moving forward with this. Wish you all the best :)"
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It might have a negative response, but here is the key: Just because we are using these apps remotely, without face to face contact with this human, does not mean that they are not a human deserving of respect and care.

It would be a radical change to begin this, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and, as with bigger issues, needs both the carrot (app optionality) and the stick (users doing the hard thing and saying how they feel) to really change wider behaviour.

One could argue it's a symptom of a more insipid failure of our society to teach proper communication tools. But that's a topic for another post!