Tinder Will Now Let Users Block People in Their Phone Contacts to Avoid Awkward Encounters on the App

Tinder will finally be letting users avoid all their exes, friends, colleagues, relatives, and anyone else they might not want to run into on a dating app. The company announced today that it will start allowing people to block their phone contacts.

According to The Verge, romance-seekers can access the feature from their settings, under the Block Contacts menu, where they can define which contact they would like to block, meaning these people will not surface for them, and vice versa.

Users can either upload their full contacts list to Tinder or add them individually. Tinder said it will not store everyone's contacts, only the ones they have chosen to block and people can unblock or disconnect their contacts list at any time.

Blocked contacts will not be notified they have been blocked. There is no easy way of knowing if an ex or other undateworthy person even has a Tinder account, it's more of a preventative measure. If a blocked individual has since changed their phone number and joins Tinder, their account could still surface.

Those who wanted to avoid the possibility of an awkward digital run-in forever, this might, finally, give them a fighting chance at doing so.