We all know that online dating has changed the game for all of us and that there is no going back. Meeting irl is almost obsolete, we all have become expert selfie-takers, and we all can spot the dating app faux pas and common courtesies as though this is how people have always coupled off!
But aside from the madness of its ubiquity, online dating has also given rise to a whole host of new words and a new vocabulary that might help you explain your situation to your friend next time they try to understand why the heck you can’t find a gf/bf! It is in fact quite alarmingly useful to have all these terms at the tip of our fingers!
Sure you’ve heard of ghosting (when someone just pff disappears) but here are some of the most-used and newest dating app terms explained for your benefit:
Breadcrumbing: ah the golden standard of online dating! Breadcrumbing is when someone won’t commit to seeing you, never makes a plan, yet seems to be in constant contact online. Basically giving you enough that you keep hoping, but never delivering.
Paperclipping: This one is a new one, identified by the website Refinery 29 only a few weeks ago. This refers to the practice of someone who you were talking to online ages before suddenly popping up unannounced after they’d disappeared. It refers to Microsoft Word’s Clippy function that used to pop up to suggest how to use it!
Fizzing: So you’ve been seeing someone then suddenly something happens (you’re not sure what) and you see less of each other and only bits of contact ensue. You know it’s coming to an end, but you don’t know exactly why and they won’t break up with you cleanly and just seem distant. This is fizzing, when the basically nothing wrong happens but online contact is dropped, and apparently it’s turning into the most common form of breakup.
Orbiting: this is quite like breadcrumbing except perhaps it is more along the lines of old-school ‘never making a move’. When this is going on, suspect the other party of already being in a relationship. Orbiting entails occasionally popping in for a conversation and checking in with you but again, like breadcrumbing, never making a decided move. Unlike breadcrumbing though it might go on for longer and the disappointing non-dates are fewer.
Firedooring: This is a particularly annoying one! It refers to how a person might occasionally get in touch with you out of the blue, dropping you a message in the middle of the afternoon only for you to freak out. You then reply, but they then disappear again, only to re-appear a few weeks or months later an repeat the whole process! This is called firedooring – like a firedoor, it only goes one way.
