Ghosting is a very annoying phenomenon from the online dating world, used to describe the awkward situation when one person in a promising liaison stops replying to messages. Sometimes we’ve been on the receiving end of it, the ghostee, and other times we’ve done the ghosting. A dating app, Badoo, claims to created a tactic against ghosting, because apparently we can’t regulate or live with our own shitty behaviour.

The new feature will “put an end to ghosting”, the dating app claims, by reminding its members to respond to conversations and offering pre-written responses to users. If you don’t reply to a message within three days, the app gives you options that will pop up in your text box. These message include the friendly – “Hey, are you free to meet this week?” – or the firmer option­­ – “Hey I think you’re great, but I don’t see us as a match. Take care!”

Previous anti-ghosting campaigns have tried to keep conversations between daters going. The dating app Hinge, for example, has a feature called Your Turn. It helps out people who are more forgetful when it comes to responding, letting users mark messages they have yet to answer and let others invite their match to start the convo. The trial run of the feature caused a 25 percent fall in ghosting. Despite the decrease in figures, there are doubts among the online dating community that these sort of features actually do any good. Sometimes a ‘ghoster’ could be ghosting just about everyone in their life, if they’re having a particularly bad time with their mental health for example. We should always be questioning how much we let apps and social networks dictate our behaviour, however bad and annoying it is. 

Badoo’s feature is currently only available in Europe, but it aims to make it international next year.