What Is Does This Bother You on Tinder?

Does This Bother You? is a Tinder safety prompt shown to the person on the receiving end of a message that might be inappropriate. It gives them a quick way to flag or report what was sent. Tinder also says the feature adds an auto-blur that hides potentially disrespectful content. If you are a man writing to your matches, the practical point is simple: this is the prompt you never want your own words to trigger.

Tinder lists Does This Bother You? with its other safety features. When someone sends a line its system reads as possibly inappropriate, the person who receives it is asked whether it bothers them and given the option to flag or report it.

Tinder describes the feature as built to detect harmful messages, and it pairs that with an auto-blur for content that may be disrespectful. So a crude line does not always land the way the sender pictured it. It can arrive hidden, sitting next to a simple way to report it.

That turns the usual logic of a shocking opener upside down. The man sending it hopes it will at least get noticed. What she may see first is a blur and a button.

The prompt has a partner. Are You Sure? appears for the person typing, before a possibly inappropriate line goes out, and recommends rethinking it.

Put the two together and the picture is clear. One feature asks the sender to reconsider. The other hands the receiver a way to push back. If you ever see Are You Sure? on your own screen, take it seriously. The kind of line it catches is exactly the kind the report option on her side exists for.

Men get bad messages too. A match who turns abusive because you took a day to answer. A stranger who opens with something vile. Someone who keeps pushing after you have said no.

If a message like that reaches you and the prompt appears, use it. You do not owe anyone an argument in the chat. Reporting is what the option is for, and it is a far better use of your evening than writing a long reply to someone who has already shown you who they are.

a dating coach often says that any response is better than silence, and in texting he is usually right. He has told stories of turning openly hostile first replies into dates, because a strong reaction is still something you can work with.

A report is different. It is not a reply you can turn around. It is her stepping out of the conversation and asking the app to look at what you wrote. There is nothing left to charm your way back from. That is why the lines that invite a report are never worth the gamble, however bored you are of being ignored.

The lines that get flagged tend to share one flaw. They ask for far too much, far too early. A sexual comment before she has said much, a remark about her body as an opener, a joke that only works if she already likes you.

My fix is to keep the opening light. Be fun, a bit playful and easy to answer at the start, and let anything sexual come later, once she is clearly enjoying the exchange. Ask only for as much as you have earned.

Match her pace as well. If she is flirting harder than you, you can follow her there. If her answers are short, turning up the heat to get a reaction is exactly how men end up on the wrong side of this prompt. Give her something easier to answer instead, or let that match go.

A quick test works on every line. Picture her reading it aloud to her two closest friends. If you would wince, rewrite it.

Some men honestly cannot tell playful from crude in writing. The same sentence sounds fine in their head and awful on her screen, because tone does not travel well in text.

When in doubt, cut the line in half and take out anything about her body. What remains is usually a better opener anyway. "You look like you win every argument at dinner. Should I be worried?" has an edge to it, and it gives her something fun to push back on. Nobody reaches for the report option over a line like that.