'I was today years old when I found out what the blue tick means on Bumble.'

This morning I made a startling revelation involving Bumble.

There I was, mindlessly swiping away before work, when I couldn’t help but notice a tiny blue tick on the bottom right-hand corner of *some* profiles, right next to their name.

“Pfft,” I thought to myself, “Who pays for Bumble premium? How lame.”

(Ahem, no judgement here if you do).

I had assumed the “blue tick” meant you were some sort of gold level Bumble member, indicating that you’d either paid for a subscription to the app, or had hit some sort of record for the amount of dates you’d been on and gained a tick as a reward from the company.

(I DON’T KNOW HOW THINGS WORK, OK?)

“No thanks,” I thought, “That has f*ckboi written all over it.”

Hours later, at my desk, I found my mind shifting back to the little blue tick.

“But what does it really mean?” I wondered, appearing deep in thought to my colleagues, who probably thought I was about to come up with a brilliant story idea.

….

……..

(Yeah, not today sorry).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Well, Google has certifiably blown my mind.

Look, I apologise if I’m just really, really slow in realising this, but the “blue tick” is actually Bumble’s way of verifying users for you know, our safety and stuff.

Yes – this is the app’s way of ensuring people are genuinely, legitimately who they really say they are.

AKA protecting us from being turned into the middle section of the human centipede on a date.

UM. WHAT.

This means I’ve been willingly accepting dates with unverified men. Unverified potential catfish.

It also means I could have swiped past my future husband thinking he was the sort of guy who pays for a dating app subscription (again, no judgement, it’s just :/).

And… it also means that I am one of the dreaded ~unverified~.

via GIPHY

It all… makes sense… now.

According to Bumble’s website, this is how it works:

1. You’ll be prompted with an example of one of a hundred random photo poses by Bumble. Take a selfie mimicking that pose and send it to the Bumble administrators using the simple step-by-step verification process outlined in-app.
2. All photos are reviewed by a real person on Bumble’s team!
3. In a few minutes, you’ll receive a confirmation or rejection of your verification.
4. If a user has been reported as a potential fake profile and is rejected in verification, their profile will be turned off. This means they will see no one on Bumble and no one will see them.

But in the meantime – the Bumble pool is full of blue-tickless users who could be any kind of random sicko.

Great.

I am upset. Upset and deeply, deeply disappointed in myself for not noticing the blue tick sooner.

Especially because the app introduced the feature in October 2017 and I have been on Bumble for approximately 200 years.

I sincerely hope this has been of assistance to you.

Good day.