Dating terms and behaviour is an every-changing landscape. Here’s the latest:
Between mindlessly swiping through different dating apps and going on a string of mediocre dates, being a millennial in the dating scene and having to keep up with fresh dating terminology every few months is exhausting.
Relationship terminology is always changing to fit the behaviours of modern dating.
In 2019, a bunch of dating terms have been created in order to give more detail to already established slang such as ghosting, tuning, the friendzone, a situationship or sliding into DMs.
Keep yourself in the loop and take a look at our guide to understand the newest terms that have entered the dating dictionary.
Breadcrumbing
According to Cosmopolitan, “Breadcrumbing is the new Ghosting” except it is worst because the breadcrumber has the intention of leading someone on.
Breadcrumbing is when a person sends flirtatious yet non-committal signals (the breadcrumbs) every now and again just to keep someone’s attention.
An example of how they work is by liking an old photo from time to time or sending sporadic messages of zero-substance just to let it be known that they are still on the radar.
Breadcrumbing can happen for one of two reasons.
Either they are unsure how to break it off, so they are slowly but surely trying to seemingly fade out of existence or they enjoy knowing they are getting attention at their beck and call.
Career-Zoned
Much like being friend-zoned, being career zoned is particularly for people who don’t want to date someone but would still like to keep them in their life professionally.
According to The World News, career-zoning is for people who would much rather connect on Linked-in than on Bumble.
Their priorities are purely aligned with their professional life and simply have no room for a relationship unless it is a work one.
Cloaking
Cloaking takes ghosting to new heights with the person doing the cloaking going radio silent on all social media.
This means unmatching them on Tinder, blocking them on Facebook and Instagram, unfollowing them on Twitter, deleting them from Snapchat and erasing their number.
It is the most brutal form of ghosting as the person disappears from any media space so as to give off the vibe that they are incognito.
According to Elle Magazine, cloaking is not far off from having the powers of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
Haunting
Haunting is when someone still acknowledges their past beau through social media according to Glamour UK.
This could mean they are the first person to view all their Snapchat and Instagram stories or like their photos on Facebook.
Some may call this an amicable break-up, others may think this equates to spying since they don’t desire to have any direct contact at all.
Instabait
Instabait is exactly how it sounds, uploading an Instagram as bait.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, instabaiting is used to provoke a crush to message them directly.
In the wider scope of things, the Instagram audience is probably clueless as to the subtlety of what the person is hinting by uploading an Instagram at a cool, new underground bar.
Little do they know that the poster’s crush recently suggested they go there and thus seeing this photo may provoke them to send a message.
It is all very complicated, and in most cases doesn’t usually elicit a response.
Social Squatter
A social-squatter is similar to a social climber.
The only difference is that they will break up with their partner, but still want to reap the benefits of having a large friend group.
According to NetLingo, being a social squatter is an unacceptable title.
Reasons for this are because staying in the same friendship circle as an ex can cause friction between the group and make group outings uncomfortable.
Textual Chemistry
Much like sexual chemistry, textual chemistry measures whether two people have a healthy online relationship.
This means texting each other frequently, not being afraid of a double text, talking about anything and everything under the sun from the funniest memes to comfortably confiding in each other.
Bolde have outlined the top ten ways to know that there is good textual chemistry here.
Zombieing
According to Grazia, zombieing refers to when people from past relationships “come back from the dead.”
After popping up and reappearing in their ex’s life they will usually act as if the past never happened.
This can also occur with dates who have disappeared or ghosted someone after wanting to organise a date, only to reappear as if they didn’t leave the person high and dry in the first place.
