
Dating
Glossary | Dating Trends
- 143-ING
Telling someone that you love him/her.
- ADVODATING
Bonding over shared moral causes.
- BACKPEDALING
Getting back with an ex after instigating a breakup.
- BEER GOGGLE-ING
Being so inebriated (aka drunk) that a person thinks that
his or her crush at the bar is more good looking than he or she
is in reality.
- BENCHING
Benching is when you keep someone "on the bench" or on the
"sidelines" or the "back burner." You're not that into them, but
you're not ready to completely cut all ties, either - they like
you, and you want to keep them as an option. Unlike ghosting, it
can be tricky to know when you're being benched. After all,
if you're not in a committed relationship, you might not be able to tell if someone is "taking
it slow" or "benching" you.
- BIRD BOXING
Blind to just how bad your partner (or the person you're seeing)
is (from the movie "Bird Box").
- BLUE-STALLING
The act of one person actively dating while claiming to be
unready for any sort of label or commitment. Like the (made up)
problem of blue balls, the other one is stuck at the starting
line, having been given the go-ahead, only to question what was
actually going on. It will also leave you feeling blue.
- BOO THING-ING
A "boo thing" (or "boo thang") refers to your love interest. You
guys may already be in a relationship, or are casually hooking
up. It falls in the grey area between a one-night stand and a
full-fledged commitment.
- BOOMERANGING
When a someone you don't remember matching with replies to a
message you sent months ago, as if no time had passed at all.
They probably started dating someone and it didn't work out, so
they've boomeranged right back to where they left off.
- BREADCRUMBING
Breadcrumbing is to leaving a trail of flirtatious messages that
lead to nothing. A breadcrumber will send countless messages,
whetting their match's appetite and creating a hunger for more,
but they'll never meet you in person.
- BUZZ-ERFLYING
A feeling you get thinking it's that special someone you've been
waiting to hear from, after your phone buzzes (you get
buzz-erflies).
- CATCHING & RELEASING
Catch and Release is a common tactic used while chasing someone.
If that someone is reeled in, this commitment-phobe suddenly
gets bored and, without any hesitation, will throw that "love
object" away, and hunt down someone new.
- CATFISHING
A catfish (and not the swimming kind) is a person who pretends
to be someone they're not, and often uses social media to create
a false identity in an effort to mislead. Catfishing, therefore,
is typically when a person uses this fake identity to build a
relationship with another person online.
- CAUSE-PLAYING
When a casual relationship fizzles out, only to have one person
later circle back with a favor to ask (usually about supporting
a good cause).
- CLOAKING
It refers to being stood up and also be blocked on any and all
apps you might have been communicating on.
- CLOUTLIGHTING
It combines the word "clout" (to be famous or have influence)
with "gaslighting" (manipulation and abuse that leads victims to
question their own beliefs, feelings and reality): people abuse
other people for clout online (a guy steals his gf's food and,
despite she cries, mocks her on video that is then uploaded
online for his followers' entertainment).
- COLLABOR-DATING
Bonding over creative projects or co-created content (like
making TikTok videos or Spotify playlists).
- COLLECTING
People swiping on dating apps purely for the instant
dopamine-hit of getting a match (yet rarely - if at all -
converting these matches to conversations) are collectors.
- COOKIE-JARRING
Keeping someone as a back-up in case it does not work out with
your current partner.
- CREWSING
Finding a group or squad on a dating app.
- CRYPTOMANCING
They are male, and after about three introductory questions,
will say: "I have been investing in a lot of bitcoin recently".
- CUFFING
During the fall and winter months people who would normally
rather be single or promiscuous find themselves, along with the
rest of the world, desiring to be "cuffed" or tied down by a
serious relationship.
- CUPCAKING
Here's a cute term for being boring. So when couples stay in,
instead of going out - they can feel better about themselves by
proclaiming that they are just "cupcaking". More to staying in
then, yaass!
- CURVING
The same thing as ghosting, except the person may communicate
that they are rejecting your advances. They sometimes are so
sneaky, someone probably won't even recognise it as rejection.
- CUSHIONING
A dating technique where along with your main piece you also
have several "cushions", other people you'll chat and flirt with
to cushion the potential blow of your main break-up and not
leave you alone.
- CUTE-A-GORY-ING
Categorizing based solely on looks! This system lets you rate
from 0 to 10, and then helps you decide whether they are out of
your league or not! Suppose, you consider yourself a 7, you are
not going to be interested in someone who is a 4!
- DATING DOWN
When one is involved romantically with a person considered
physically inferior to them on a scale of general
attractiveness, often leading others to question the motive of
the more attractive party.
- DEEP LIKING
A proven method for showing a crush that someone likes them.
Scrolling back in time on their feed and like something on the
past, to subtly indicate there's an interest.
- DEFLEXTING
Some people like to ignore questions asked via texts and
intentionally change the subject by bringing up a different
topic (and that feels kinda awkward).
- DFMO-ING
DFMO or Dance Floor Make-Out is the kind of thing you see people
do in rom-coms! It is sloppy and has a lot of saliva involved.
- DIAL-TONING
Different from ghosting, dial-toning is ignoring someone before
a relationship ever begins. It's the act of giving someone your
phone number only to ignore them when they reach out.
- DRACULA-ING
When someone hits you with a "You up?" text only in the middle
of the night.
- DRAKING
It is the act of wallowing in your sorrows caused by the
opposite sex, and, very recently, sleeping with women who are in
relationships with other men (from Drake, known for sleeping
with other rappers' partners).
- DREAMSCAPING
Dreamscaping is building a surreal relationship that fools the
other one into thinking it was not only something real but
something fantastic.
- DTF-ING
Down-to-fucking, or willing to put out. A pervasive desire to do
away with commitment, plunging straight between someone's legs.
- DTR-ING
DTR, or Define the Relationship. If we are terrified of
commitment, and love ambiguity, we feel the need to label our
romantic relationships. This concept reflects a more complex
issue of how we try to forge a romantic bond while trying to
evade the obligations of commitment.
- ECLIPSING
Adopting the interests or hobbies of someone you're dating and
pretending you like them too.
- ELSA-ING
When someone "freezes you out" without explanation (named after
the Frozen movie character).
- EMAILSHIP
People who are in a relationship without ever meeting, only
exchanging emails.
- EXAGGER-DATING
It is sort of embellishing dates to let other people know they
went way better than they actually did.
- EXING
Exing simply
means being obsessed with or addicted to your ex and all the
attendant drama.
- FBO-ING
FBO stands for
Facebook Official. This of course involves changing your
Facebook relationship status to mirror your newly confirmed
relationship.
- FIZZLING
Slowly
displaying a lack of interest in a potential love interest's
messages in the hopes that they feel undesired, and subsequently
end all further communication without the need for an actual
face-to-face conversation.
- FLAKING
Pulling out of dates that someone agrees to go to.
- FLATLINING
When a conversation between prospective mates goes totally dead.
- FLEABAGGING
Dating people who are wrong for you.
- FUCKBOY-ING
It is a
sleeping with women without any intention of having a
relationship with them or perhaps even walking them to the door
post-sex. Womanizing, in a callous way, typical of a loser.
- GEO CUTE-A-GORY-ING
Categorizing based on looks and geographic location! This system
lets you rate your "love interest" (see CUTE-A-GORY-ING)
and decide if geographically undesirable to you (different
areas, cities, regions, countries, etc.).
- GGG-ING
GGG (good, giving, and game) is what sexual partners should
strive to be for a healthy relationship
- GHOSTING
Ghosting is when you get dumped via
vanishing act. No more calls, no more texts, no responses to
attempts at communications. There are degrees of ghosting - it
could happen after a few dates or after a full-fledged
relationship. Ghosting
often feels like a blindside - so much so that you might spend a
few days panicked that something bad has happened to the person.
That is, until they post a photo of themselves at a party on
Instagram.
- GLAMBOOZLED
Getting fully done up for a date only to have them cancel or
your plans fall through at the last minute.
- GOBLING MODE DATING
Going into every first date 100% yourself and unapologetically so
- HAUNTING
The ghost
returning through social media interactions without being
directly in touch with you, is haunting! Coined in a tweet by
Alyson Shontell of Tech Insider, haunting happens when someone
actively likes your posts on FB and Instagram, cares to view
your stories on Snapchat, but gives you mixed signals all along.
- INSTA-GATORING
Implies initiating contact or first making a relationship
official via social media by tagging, DM-ing, or posting a photo
of two people.
- INVESTIDATING
Inspecting images, text, smileys, emojii and other profile
details for conversation starters on dating apps.
- IPHONY-ING
The constant promising to text someone made by a nasty guy or
girl (who never actually does that).
- JEKYLLING
When someone seems nice at first but turns nasty or weird.
- JELLYING
Telling
someone he/she is getting too much jealous.
- KANYE'D
When your date spends the entire time talking about themselves.
- KITTENFISHING
A light
version of
CATFISHING (see above) - when you pretend to be a totally
different person online - Kittenfishing can be as simple as
using profile photos that are out-of-date or heavily edited; or,
more severely, straight-up lying about your age, height,
interests or accomplishments.
- (GOING) IRL
Going "In Real Life" is when you take the relationship from
online/app to the real world.
- LAYBYING
A laybe is
someone who's in a relationship, but not happy about it, so
laybe-ing is the act of scoping potential hookups for later,
maybe even flirting. A laybe isn't altogether available right at
this moment but plans to be soon and s/he likes to have someone
waiting in the wings because, generally, a laybe doesn't enjoy
being single for even half a second.
- (DOING THE) LEMMING
A
lemming is someone who is happily exclusively dating, but as
soon as their friends come out of relationships, they follow
blindly into singledom.
- MARLEYING
Refers to people who contact their ex over Christmas in the
hopes of rekindling their romance for a fling - or more.
- MEGADATING
Juggling
numerous potential partners at once in non-exclusive
relationships.
- (BEING A) MEME MISTRESS
A 2017 way of online flirting, when all someone does is
continuously tag you in/send you relevant memes.
- MOONING
When someone
moons you, they turn off the notifications for your messages
because they don't care about what you have to say right now
(the term refers to the half moon icon that appears when you
stick your phone on Do Not Disturb).
- MOSTING
When someone
convinces you that you're "the one", and then ghosts (see
GHOSTING) you.
- NEGGING
It is a weird pick-up tactic where someone approaches you and,
instead of just being friendly, they give you a backhanded
compliment. The idea is to bring your confidence down a bit,
which is somehow meant to make you more interested in the person
doing the negging.
- NETFLIX & CHILLING
Watching Netflix together or more as a euphemism for some form
of sex.
- NON-DATING
It includes
plenty of alcohol, intense eye contact, a subtle flirty vibe,
and lots & lots of confusion! Is this person being friendly? Or
just cordial? Or flirty? You need to spend on a few more rounds
during Happy Hour to find out!
- ORBITING
When somebody is not quite a part of your life but makes sure to
keep themselves relevant to you (for example, by popping up on
your social media).
- OSTRICHING
Blocking someone who didn't reply within 24 hours so to avoid to
deal with rejection.
- PAPERCLIPPING
Disappearing after a few dates only to follow up months later to
see if you'll still respond to their superficial questions (from
Clippy, the Microsoft help tool known for popping up whenever
you didn't need him).
- PASSIVE GHOSTING
Suppose you got matched with someone on Tinder or Bumble. But
when you message them, they act passive. You cannot get through
to them, although the two of you have indicated your interest in
one another by matching. The conclusion you draw from this
frustrating experience is: They have been swiping just for fun,
and are passive ghosting!
- PEACOCKING
This is the
somewhat offline version of catfishing. Peacocking is when
someone uses their external appearance, clothes, car and other
"props" to make themselves look more attractive. Yes, we all
dress up for a date, and put our best foot forward. But while
most of us up our style by a notch or two, peacocks either show
off, or beg, borrow, steal so they can look a certain way.
- PIE HUNTING
It is the
act of deliberately seeking out singletons with a disastrous
dating or relationship history. "Pied Pipers" are the "hunters".
- ROACHING
It occurs when
a new partner hides the fact that they're dating around.
- SCROOGING
Avoiding to get too serious with a partner just before
Christmas so that they don't have to buy them a present.
- SHACK PACKING
Packing a
small overnight bag of the essentials, typically used for a
one-night-stand and includes things like a toothbrush, condoms,
and a hairbrush.
- SHIPPING
To "ship" a
couple is to support or approve of their courtship.
- SIGNIFICANT OTHER STALMATING
Aka s. o. stalmating, it happens when none of the people
involved in a relationship wants to have that
"define-the-relationship conversation" which leads to no
relationship progress whatsoever.
- SITUATIONSHIP
A
relationship that has no label. More than FWB but less a stable
dating.
- SLAYING
Daters who are
slaying are not chatting with you for the conversation. They
also don't fall in love. They have just one goal, and that's
scoring, in the biblical sense. They consider themselves to be
sexual hunters and the people they flirt with are their prey.
Oh, and they want that roll in the hay with no strings attached.
- SLIDING
A form of
social media flirting, sliding happens when someone you never
knew existed starts sending personal messages to you on these
platforms. They "slide into" your DMs. While seemingly
inoffensive, sliding is a little abrupt. It happens before you
throw any hints showing your interest, though the two of you may
publicly be interacting on Twitter.
- SLOW-DATING
A blend of deeper conversations and more romance through
digital and virtual dating
- SLOW FADING
Similar to
ghosting, it's where someone you are chatting to or seeing
gradually cuts you off, making less and less effort with being
in touch.
- SOFT GHOSTING
When
someone isn't replying to your messages - and probably going to
disappear - but continue to send reactions (such as likes or
emojis) to any comments you make on their posts or messages.
- SOFTBOY-ING
It is
posing as a complicated person with emotions, but is ultimately
being selfish.
- SPEED-ROOMING
Daters who rush into going to live together (especially after
pandemic times).
- STASHING
It happens
when someone doesnt introduce you to anyone, while you've let
them meet everyone important in your life.
- SUBMARINING
It is the
thing where someone you've been seeing disappears for an
extended period but then randomly resurfaces with some version
of a "Hey, what's up?" message. It's in the same family as
ZOMBIE-ING (see below) but you don't get even a
half-assed apology for them being MIA. They just pop back on the
radar as if nothing odd has happened.
- SWAYZING
For (Patrick)
Swayzing, see Ghosting
- SWERVING
Popularised by
Kanye West's song Mercy, it essentially implies dodging someone
you're not interested in. Now, we've all done this at some
point, and honestly, sometimes it is the only way out (like when
you're trying to shake off a weirdo at a bar), but it's best to
avoid this whenever possible. Simply say "No", and of course,
expect the same.
- SWIPING LEFT
Dismissing
someone as a romantic opportunity in a nanosecond.
- TALKING
A casual way of
saying that you two have started "seeing each other". This helps
limit expectations as you are kind of saying, "Let's see". You
are doing this so that neither of you end up wretched if the
relationship does not work out.
- TEXTLATIONSHIP
People
who are in a relationship without ever meeting, only exchanging
emails.
- (BEING A) THING
Two
people are "a thing" in the period before they are officially
dating.
- THIRST TRAPPING
This
term is most commonly used to describe a social media photo
that's posted to intentionally create attention. For example, if
a person was to caption an image "I love my new watch", but the
photo is zoomed in on their half-naked body, that would be
considered a "thirst trap".
- THIRSTY-ING
Act of
showing a need for attention, to the point of desperation.
- THOT-ING
Acting like
you are somebody's "that hoe over there".
- THREE-DOT DISAPPEARING
The act of of starting to type a message and then stopping. At
that, the three dots in your conversation keep popping up and
vanishing.
- THUNBERGING
Bonding over their passion for the environment climate change.
- TINDER CREEPING
Using
dating sites as an opening to troll, objectify, harass, and/or
berate targets; lashing out in an unsolicited and inappropriate
manner. This term kind of proves that most people on these
online dating sites are not in search of true love! They make
you want to delete your account!
- TINDERING
More than
having a profile on Tinder, it actually refers to being active
on it.
- TINDERSURFING
The act
of traveling while finding accommodation through Tinder.
- TINDSTAGRAMMING
A
blindly persistent Tinder user sneaking into someone's Instagram
DMs after being turned down on the dating app.
- TOUR GUIDE SEEKING
Landing in a new country and using apps to find a local to show
them around whilst dating at the same time.
- TUNING
Online flirting
that skirts the chances of being rejected. It can lead to a text
or a booty call. This person will drop hints in the form of
likes on Instagram or Facebook. Once there has been a back and
forth confirming interest, a DM is sure to follow suit in the
late hours of the night!
- TYPE-CASTING
Exclusively dating people based on Myers-Briggs Type or "Love
Language" compatibility.
- UMFRIENDING
When a
friend asks you "Who was sneaking out from your apartment last
night?" and you answer "That's my, um, friend", you are surely
talking about your fuck buddy, booty call or friend with
benefits.
- WHEELING
Attempting to
attract a potential sexual partner for one evening, usually in
locations, such as a bar or party, that are typical set for
affairs or flirts.
- WHELMING
When matches
spontaneously lament about how overwhelmed they are by their
other matches instead of flirting with you.
- WHITE CLAWING
The act
of staying with someone who you find basic and boring only
because you find them attractive.
- WILDER-DATING
Experiencing the great outdoors as a way to get to know their
match.
- WOKEFISHING
Someone pretending to be interested in progressive/woke politics
or topics just to lure other people in to get them to date them.
- YELLOW CARDING
When
someone is called out on their poor dating behavior.
- ZOMBIE-ING
To be zombied is to have someone you
care about disappear from your life altogether only to have them
bring a relationship back from the dead with an out-of-the-blue
text or interaction on social media. It doesn't have to be a text or social media
contact; some people go full-blown - a phone call, an old-school
letter, or showing up in person somewhere you know they'll be.