A Guide to Dating Terminology

Finding love is never easy.

The dating game is tiring and confusing, filled with: late night chats, doubts that romance is even worth it, and 'will you?/won't you?’ moments that’ll keep you on your toes.

Dating apps are supposed to make finding the love of your life a whole lot quicker and easier. Really they’re just another complicated part of the dating minefield.

But never fear there are terms to help you understand dating issues, new and old, in a modern context.

So here is a 21st Century dating dictionary to help you make a little more sense of it all, maybe...

Ghosting

Nothing says 'we should see other people’ like one of your crushes whom you’ve been chatting to and messaging for months disappearing without a trace. It's pretty impossible not to detect their lack of interest by the way they drop you from their life completely. Your crush is generally gone for good but could return to haunt you a few months later, like the 'Ghost of a Relationship That Never Was' they are with the words: 'Hey stranger.’ Do not engage.

Breadcrumbing

Hansel and Gretel followed a trail of breadcrumbs that led them to the home of a cannibal witch, a house made of sweets in the middle of a dark forest. Likewise you follow the flow of the conversation you're having with your crush, which will lead to a date. But it doesn't and your crush laid their own trail of breadcrumbs leading to the death of your potential romance because they enjoyed the attention.

Benching

The best couples are those that work as a team to set and achieve their goals, around careers, family, or choosing straws to decide who's lucky enough to clean the oven. Choosing the teammate you want to spend the rest of your life with is the difficult part. After a date, if your crush becomes a little less eager in replying to your messages and evasive about a second date; then you probably didn't make the A-team and they’ve put you on the bench for a later date.

Slow Fade

A little bit like ghosting but for the kind of serial dater who wants play with your emotions a little more. Just as you’re really falling for potential bae No. 666, they begin to disappear from your life: leaving messages on 'read’, changing plans, making excuses not to see you, and letting calls go to voicemail. It doesn't take too long for No. 666 to vanish into the night.

Phubbing

Not as overly rude as it sounds but the art of snubbing bae for the true love of your life...your phone. It’s pretty much impossible for you to go about your daily life without a phone, but maybe once in awhile, it's better not to get too distracted by the seductive glow of its screen and actually live your life. Try it.

Thirst Trap

The perfect selfie is a modern myth, as elusive as the lost city of El Dorado. There are just too many variables: location, lighting, pose, props, filter (Sierra or Moon?), and clothing options. None of that matters, if the aim’s to get bae’s attention, taking a half-naked selfie that shows off your new hat will do. You're a masterpiece.

Textlationship

You get chatting to someone you like, give them your number and start texting, which leads to more and more texting. Before you know it you’re in a relationship built on text messages. That's it. You never get a call, but you text all the time. It pretty much peaked at the first 'how r u’.

Catch and Release

Before living happily ever after with bae, you have to go out into the world and find them. When you do manage to successfully navigate the minefield of online dating, and come across someone you click with, you're filled with the warm and fuzzies. You think about them all the time and instantly reply to their texts. They're just as into you. Well until you get serious and organise a date, which is when they stop being interested. All they wanted was to be invited on a date, not actually go on one (which makes so much sense) with their goal accomplished they begin their chase again with someone else.

Love Bombing

Probably the cruelest dating trend, a potential date expresses interest in everything you do, showers you with compliments, and are just so nice. Until their behaviour changes and they try to control your life, demand to know where you are at all times, and flip out for no reason. When that happens abort mission and embrace the spinster lifestyle.

Cushioning

Relationships don't always go the way you imagined them, you might be happy to begin with but then things take a turn. Somewhere along the line, you realise you and your partner aren't at all compatible but can't bring yourself to actually break-up with them. Whilst you wait and wait for them to realise you aren't the one, you start seeing other people to soften the blow of your existing relationship crashing and burning.

Tuning

It’s hard to imagine having a secret admirer who's too shy to make themselves known when you're barely holding your life together. After all you're not living in a rom-com. Still, one day future bae might make themselves known by liking your Instagram posts, commenting using only emojis, or retweeting 140 character philosophical insights to show they want to tune into Channel You.

Cuffing Season

Through the winter months when it's cold and dark, being single becomes a little less bearable. Summer's over and you spend all your time binge watching Netflix, isn't it just so much better to not do it alone? Well, yeah. So:chat, date, meet bae, spend all your days on the sofa drinking hot cocoa together, and speak endlessly of how you’ll be in love til death do you part. Then as soon as Spring rolls around, you’ve got yourself an ex.