On Tinder I will be texting with someone that seems to be moving forward and then maybe a day or two later I text something and the app says: Error message failed to send. It also shows a triangle which is colored red inside with a question mark.
Tinder and similar dating apps have revolutionized the dating and mating world. It seems like just about every single person out there is on Tinder, looking for Mr(s). Right or at least Mr(s). Right Now. With almost 60 million active users as of March 2019, and more than 1.6 billion swipes per day, Tinder is playing an enormous role in the romantic lives of people all over the world. But with all the technological changes that have occurred, some things remain the same, and one of those things is heartbreak and rejection. People match on Tinder…but they also unmatch. And because Tinder doesn’t give you an explicit message to tell you that you’ve been unmatched, sometimes it’s a little confusing as to what happened. In this article, I will tell you how to tell whether you’ve been unmatched. (If you’re using Bumble instead of or in addition to Tinder, you might want to read our article on how to tell if someone unmatched you on Bumble.)
Unmatching is just a fact of life. Even when people meet in person first and know immediately whether there is chemistry between a couple, relationships go south or never get started in the first place. Sometimes it’s just a difference in the way people look at the world, or a conflict of lifestyles or values. Other times, although there is an attraction, things just don’t work out. So it should be no surprise that in an app, where there really isn’t any way to gauge compatibility other than “she looks pretty” / “he’s funny in chat”, a lot of the time matches simply never go anywhere and someone ends up unmatching. It happens, it isn’t the end of the world, and it would be super helpful if people could just be mature and say “hey, you seem nice, but I don’t think this is going anywhere so I’m going to move on. Best wishes!” before they unmatch. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often, and most of the time an unmatching is done without warning, and sometimes right in the middle of a conversation that one person thought was going really well.
It’s very exciting to receive a match in Tinder. It means a new beginning, a new conversation, getting to introduce yourselves to one another and sharing that connection. This can lead to plenty of great conversations—and potentially great dates—often times you’ll find a connection isn’t properly made, or is lost in translation between two users. If you’ve ever found yourself in a conversation with another Tinder user, only to find they’ve suddenly disappeared, or you’ve received a notification of a new match, only to open your app and find a lack of new notifications, this is the guide for you. Here’s how to tell if you’ve been unmatched on Tinder.
Tinder Reboot
The first thing to do is to rule out a glitch. Tinder isn’t perfect, and like all software, glitches happen. To make sure that your disappearing match wasn’t just an error, start out by closing and restarting the Tinder application on your phone. (Be sure to check out our article on whether Tinder erased your match.)
On iOS, this is done by double-tapping on the Home button on the iPhone 8 and earlier. On later models, you’ll need to either swipe up from the bottom of the display and hold your finger for a moment, or swipe up and to the right to open your list of apps. Find the Tinder application in your list of running apps on your phone and swipe up to force close the app from your device (on the iPhone X, you’ll need to long press on the app and click the red X in the corner of the app). Once you’ve successfully close the application, restart the app to see if the conversation and match have returned to your account.
On Android, most devices have a dedicated Recent Apps button, either on the hardware of the device or within the virtual buttons on the display. Unlike iOS, apps are presented in a vertical carousel. Force closing an app is completed the same way as iOS—swipe away the app from your list. On Android, you can also go into your App settings to force close the app without swiping it away from your Recent Apps.
Once you’ve stopped the app from running, cleared the app from your device, reopen it and check both your conversations and your notifications. It’s possible a missing conversation or match notification was an error. If your missing conversation or notification haven’t reemerged after restarting the app, then the other person unmatched you.
Consider Yourself Blocked
Sometimes when you’ve been unmatched, you might feel determined to find that lost connection again. Although it’s understandable that someone might feel this way, it’s really not productive. They unmatched for a reason, and whether you agree with the reason or not isn’t really relevant. Love is something that has to flow naturally; it can’t be compelled or argued. And in any case, once people have unmatched, Tinder flags their accounts for one another, so that they don’t show up again in the card stack. Once the other person has unmatched you, you’re not going to see them again without an account reset.
Ready to Start Over?
It is possible that you might see the other person again on Tinder, if one or both of you resets their account. Account resets clear all those blocks and flags. If you want to reset your account, you can read our tutorial on how to reset your Tinder account. If you’re thinking of resetting your account because you want to get rid of all your current matches, then before you take a drastic step, read our tutorial on how to delete all your Tinder matches.
Dealing With It
The truth is that everybody gets unmatched. Hey, even Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston broke up – it doesn’t matter how good-looking, or wonderful, or smart, or rich, or whatever you are – not everyone is going to want to be with you and that is OK. The right person may still be out there, you just have to find them. That’s why, after an unmatch, you really shouldn’t roll up in a ball and eat ice cream while crying in front of a rom-com. If that match had been right for you, they’d still be in your life. Instead, you should get back on the horse and find the person who IS right for you.
Reasons for Unmatching
One big cause of stress in an unmatching is that we don’t know why it happens, usually. Sometimes we can guess; “was it the hilarious joke I just made in chat about how fat she looks in her pictures?” Yeah, that was probably it. Other times we’re completely clueless; things seemed to be going great, your match’s last message was them telling you how funny you are or how much they’re enjoying the conversation, and then boom. Once in a great while, we know for sure because they tell us: “I just found out my long-lost husband wasn’t dead, he was on a desert island after his plane crashed, and he’s coming home! So I’m getting off Tinder.”
Aside from the anxiety and uncertainty of not knowing, figuring out why someone unmatched can be helpful to us because it lets us know where we need to improve our presentation or what things we need to work on. (“Maybe the joke I thought was hilarious is actually really annoying to the person it makes fun of.”) One approach is to ask your friends to review your conversations and see if they can spot clues of an impending unmatch that you didn’t pick up on. (“Sarah, in the chat you kept saying that short men sicken you, and in his profile it clearly says that he’s 5’6”.)
Getting Back on the Horse
The best revenge, they say, is living well, and the best way to get over being unmatched is to go out and generate a bunch more matches. Of course, that’s not always the easiest thing to do. How can you get more matches on Tinder? (One way is to read our article on getting more matches on Tinder!) There are basically three things you can do:
- Better pictures
- Better profile/bio text
- Better expectations
Getting better pictures is absolutely crucial. Your pictures are the first thing that potential matches see. It’s really the main thing that they can evaluate you on. Fortunately, we’ve got your back on this one. Check out our articles on how to pick a great Tinder picture and how Smart Photos work on Tinder.
Developing a great bio is also important. Your pictures get them in the door, your bio convinces them to seal the deal. We have you covered here as well, with articles on why your bio is important and what a good bio looks like on any dating site. We’ve also go an article with some suggestions for writing a funny bio.
Finally, managing your expectations. I have a male friend – nice guy in his late 30s, reasonably handsome, has a decent job – who complained that he couldn’t get any matches. I looked at his profile and guess what? His age range was set to 19-23, and his distance was set to 5 miles, in a relatively small community, and he swiped left on anybody with less than supermodel looks. Now, is it impossible for a fairly regular guy approaching middle age to partner up with a young, staggeringly beautiful woman who happens to live just up the street from him? No, it isn’t impossible – but those aren’t betting odds. I am not saying that you need to swipe right on everyone who comes your way, but you have to understand how the Tinder algorithms work.
You only see people who meet your criteria, and it works both ways – if those 19 year old girls had set their parameters to exclude men over 25, they wouldn’t be seeing my friend. So not only is he only seeing a small portion of the women in his area, only a small portion of THAT small portion are seeing him. So you want to include as many people as you could reasonably be attracted to in your geographic and age criteria. You can always left-swipe on anyone who doesn’t suit you, and in fact the way the Tinder algorithms work, you are BETTER OFF swiping left on at least some people. Otherwise you look desperate and the algorithm deprecates your score.
You may have been unmatched, but with these tips you’ll be back out there meeting new people in no time!