No one wants to admit to being on Tinder twenty-four-seven. Or that they have been on Tinder for… uh… a really long time. But admit it, you notice when something changes!
Like when the Matches Feed feature came in, or 2017’s logo change, and more recently (not hard, as 2017 was about a hundred years ago in online dating years) the introduction of whatever the hell this new green dot.
Well, if you stopped and thought about it for a minute you might be able to work it out! What does a green dot usually mean online? Right! Well, not exactly.
The green dot on Tinder means that the user who has the dot has been online in the past 24 hours.
The dot appears on your Likes You grid, so you’re more likely to have noticed it if you have Tinder Gold or Platinum.
And if that makes you really want Gold or Platinum, take a look at my article on what you get with a premium Tinder subscription.
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Does The Green Dot Mean A Tinder User Is Online?
Yeah, this is sort of confusing. As I implied before, everyone knows that a green dot has something to do with users being online. But in the case of Tinder, it means that users have recently been online, not that they’re online right now.
Basically, the idea is that you’re more likely to like someone who has been online recently because you know they must actually use the app regularly at the moment and you’re likely to get a response when you message.
Related: What Is The Star On Tinder? Blue Star Explanation 2023
This phenomenon is amplified when you’ve recently been pre-ghosted. Yeah, that’s a term I’m coining, pre-ghosted. Like when you add someone you really like the look of, who plays racquetball just like you do and is very funny in her bio.
And you really want someone to play racquetball with on Thursday at the Y so you’re really hopeful about the girl, and you craft a perfect opening message with a couple of inside racquetball references but not too many because you don’t want to sound like a boring obsessive and tbh it took a really long time to write.
And then she never replies. That, my friends, is a pre-ghost.
Green Dots On Tinder Messages
As well as the green dots in your matches feed you’ll notice the same on your messages feed. Now, this is where the green dots can get stressful, but really, try to stay calm! Remember the dots mean that a user has been online in the last 24 hours.
They do not mean, Julie in Adams Morgan thought the joke you sent in reply to her last message was very dull and in fact that you are also dull, she has been online this whole time and she just doesn’t want to talk to you.
I repeat that is not what the green dots mean! Admittedly, if you met someone a while ago and you’re still matched on Tinder, even though now you’re serious and had agreed to stop looking for other people, and she has a green dot, then…
Hey wait a minute, what the hell are you doing on Tinder? Yeah, and you’ll have a green dot too. She’ll probably see it. This will be an absolute elephant in the room when you see her tomorrow after work.
But the green dot only means in the last 24 hours, so actually, maybe she didn’t see… this is going to get complicated… you should delete Tinder right now.
What I’m saying is, overall, you should try not to stress about the green dots. They can only tell you so much. How about we all try to get zen about the green dots and just let them do their job, yeah?
Can You Turn The Green Dot Off Tinder?
I don’t know what you have against the green dot, the green dot is absolutely fine, it’s not hurting anyone, it’s just sitting there being green and keeping you informed about which of the Tinder users who liked you were online recently.
But fine. You can indeed turn the green dot off on Tinder if you don’t like it for your strange and specific reasons. Just go to Settings, scroll down and tap into Recently Active Status, and set the “Show Activity Status” toggle to OFF.
There we go. No more green dot. But the green dot was really just trying its best, so you should think about what your issues are with it. Maybe it’s not the green dot that’s the problem, you know what I’m saying?
