The League adds read receipts, so paid members can confirm when someone is really ghosting them

The League, a dating app that users have to apply to join, has a new feature that could help with one of the most agonizing parts of the online dating process — wondering if someone’s deliberately ignoring you or if they just haven’t opened the app in a while.

Specifically, The League is importing an idea from other messaging services — read receipts, which tell you if someone has read your messages.

I’m not a big fan of read receipts in most contexts, but I can see the appeal here. They won’t tell you why someone suddenly decided that they don’t want to talk to you anymore, but at least you’ll know when that’s what actually happened. (Free advice: When this happens, do not send an indignant message asking for an explanation.)

In fact, The League says this was the single most requested feature among members of its pilot paid membership program. And yes, this is a feature that you’ll have to pay for — nonpaying users (like me) will see a “check read status” button in their conversations, but tapping on it just takes you to a page where you can sign up for a paid membership.

A League membership costs $179.99 for a year and includes features like profile feedback and access to more potential matches.

“Our goal is to build out a valuable membership program that works for the super busy, hard­working type-A users we are lucky enough to have logging in daily,” said CEO Amanda Bradford in a press release. “Because our community is smaller and tighter­-knit it means each member gets to have a huge impact on our product roadmap.”