Can You Pause Your Badoo Account?

Yes. Badoo calls it hiding. You switch your account to hidden, other members stop seeing you, and nothing is deleted. When you are ready to come back, you switch it off and you are visible again. Premium members also get a snooze, which is a break that keeps their matches and messages.

1. Open your Profile.
2. Tap the Settings gear.
3. Tap Account.
4. Turn on the Hide account toggle.

To return, follow the same path and turn the toggle off.

On Badoo's website the path is the same up to the last step: Profile, the Settings gear, then Account. The toggle there is called Hide profile instead of Hide account. Tap it again when you want to be visible.

If the label does not match what you expected, look for the other name. It is one setting with two names.

These three get mixed up, so here is how they differ.

Hiding takes you out of sight and keeps the account. Snoozing is a Premium feature that does a similar job, taking a break without losing your matches and messages. Deleting ends the account for good.

One caution comes from Badoo itself. Badoo says matches may temporarily disappear from other people's Chats tab. That happens while a Premium member has snoozed or hidden their account. If a woman matters to you, do not rely on the chat still being there when you return. Get her number before you switch anything on.

Hiding an account and paying for a subscription are separate. Badoo's help pages describe the hide toggle as a visibility setting, and they describe no way to pause a subscription. If you pay for Premium and want the payments to stop, you cancel it. The paid perks last to the end of the period you paid for.

While you are hidden, your account is not shown to other members. You are not deleted, and your photos and settings stay where you left them.

For a man, the point is control. You decide when you are visible. You are not left to stumble through a dead stretch with your name still in front of women you have no energy to write to.

A break is the right move more often than men admit.

You may have started seeing someone and want a fair go at it without a phone full of other conversations. Work may be taking every evening for a few weeks. Or you may be opening the app in a bad mood after a slow run.

On that last one, a dating coach has a view. When things keep going downhill, he says, take a break, get re-centered, and then decide the best next step. A man who grinds on while he is irritated writes flat openers and makes careless choices. A week off does more good than another week of that.

The danger with a hidden account is that it stays hidden. Put a date in your calendar the day you switch it on, and treat that date as the plan, not a hope.

Then use the time. Hidden is a good moment to repair what was not working, because nobody is watching you do it. Take a few photos in daylight, in clothes you actually wear, in places you actually spend time. Put the clearest one of your face first. Then read your written profile as if a stranger wrote it, and cut anything you would not say aloud on a date.

When your date arrives, switch the toggle off and treat it as a fresh start. Change one thing at a time and give it a week or two. See whether more women answer and more conversations turn into plans.

My method for moving a woman from an app to a real plan takes about four to seven messages, with a purpose in every one. Come back with better photos and the habit of suggesting a plan inside that window, and the time away will have paid for itself.