At some point in the last few years, dating grew its own dialect. You’re seeing someone, and then you’re being breadcrumbed. A conversation goes quiet, and someone calls it fizzling. An ex resurfaces out of nowhere, and apparently that’s zombieing. None of this is happening because dating got more complicated than it used to be — texting and social media just gave the old patterns new names, and new visibility.

That’s actually useful. A name is a handle. Once you can name a pattern, you stop wondering if you’re imagining it, and you can start deciding what to do about it — calmly, and without turning the other person into a villain in your head.

This glossary collects the terms that come up most in modern dating, grouped by what they actually describe, not just alphabetized for the sake of it. Each one links to a full breakdown if you want to go deeper into the psychology and how to handle it.

Quick Reference

Disappearing acts — Ghosting · Zombieing · Orbiting · Soft Ghosting · Fizzling · Roaching

Keeping you on the hook — Breadcrumbing · Benching · Pocketing · Love Bombing · Future Faking · Fleabagging

Deceptive presentation — Kittenfishing

Digital dating signals — Hard Launch · Soft Launch · Vibe Check · Dry Texting · Textationship · The Ick

Undefined connections — Situationship · Simping

Disappearing Acts

These are the terms for how people exit — or half-exit — without ever saying it out loud.

Ghosting

Someone you’ve been talking to, or seeing, cuts off all contact with no explanation. No fight, no closure, just silence. It’s become the default exit strategy in modern dating precisely because it costs the person doing it nothing in the moment — the discomfort gets outsourced to you. → Full breakdown: What Is Ghosting in Dating?

Zombieing

Someone who ghosted you resurfaces later — a like, a “hey stranger,” sometimes months on — as if the silence never happened. No apology, no explanation, just a casual re-entry. What you do with that is entirely your call, but it’s worth remembering how they left before deciding how much room to give them coming back. → Full breakdown: What Is Zombieing in Modern Dating?

Orbiting

Someone stops actively pursuing you but keeps quietly watching — views, likes, the occasional story reaction — without ever reaching out directly. It’s a strange kind of presence that isn’t really presence at all, and it can keep you emotionally tethered to someone who never intended to follow through. → Full breakdown: What Is Orbiting?

Soft Ghosting

A quieter cousin of ghosting: instead of vanishing outright, they start liking your messages instead of replying to them, or reacting to your stories instead of texting back. It lets them avoid the discomfort of a clean break while still, functionally, disappearing. → Full breakdown: What Is Soft Ghosting?

Fizzling

There’s no dramatic disappearance here — the conversation just slowly loses air. Replies get shorter, slower, less curious, until eventually they stop. It’s ghosting on a longer timeline, and it can be harder to name because there’s no single moment you can point to. → Full breakdown: What Is Fizzling in Modern Dating?

Roaching

Someone you’re seeing is quietly seeing other people too, and never mentions it — not because you agreed to something open, but because they never told you there was anything to disclose. The problem isn’t that they were dating around; it’s the omission. → Full breakdown: What Is Roaching in Dating?

Keeping You on the Hook

These describe attention that’s calibrated to hold your interest without ever resolving into something real.

Breadcrumbing

Just enough contact to keep you hopeful — a text here, a like there — without any real intention of building something. It works because intermittent attention is psychologically stickier than consistent attention; you stay invested trying to figure out what it means. → Full breakdown: What Is Breadcrumbing?

Benching

Someone keeps you around as an option — pleasant, low-commitment contact — while they figure out what else, or who else, they want. You’re not chosen and you’re not let go; you’re kept warm. → Full breakdown: What Is Benching in Dating?

Pocketing

Also called stashing — someone keeps you out of view of their wider life. No introductions to friends, nothing on social media, no signs to the outside world that you exist to them. It can be circumstantial, or it can be a quiet signal about where you actually rank. → Full breakdown: What Is Pocketing (or Stashing)?

Love Bombing

Overwhelming affection, attention, and intensity early on — more than the timeline of the relationship would normally justify. It isn’t always calculated; it can be genuine excitement from someone with an anxious attachment style. Either way, the pace itself is worth noticing before you match it. → Full breakdown: What Is Love Bombing?

Future Faking

Someone talks vividly about a shared future — trips, meeting family, moving in — that never actually starts arriving. The words create momentum; the actions never catch up to them. → Full breakdown: What Is Future Faking in Dating?

Fleabagging

A repeating pattern of choosing partners who clearly aren’t a good fit — not once, but as a habit. Naming it is less about any one person and more about noticing what keeps drawing you back to the same kind of unavailability. → Full breakdown: What Is Fleabagging in Modern Dating?

Deceptive Presentation

Kittenfishing

A softer version of catfishing — not a fake identity, but a curated one. Old photos, an exaggerated job title, a personality that doesn’t survive the first date. The gap between the profile and the person is the whole issue. → Full breakdown: What Is Kittenfishing?

Digital Dating Signals

Half of modern dating happens through a screen, so a whole vocabulary exists just to describe what people signal — or refuse to signal — online.

Hard Launch

Publicly and unambiguously introducing a partner — a joint photo, a caption that removes any doubt. It’s the opposite of pocketing: full visibility instead of none. → Full breakdown: What Is a Hard Launch in Dating?

Soft Launch

A partial reveal — a hand in a photo, a silhouette, a caption with no name — that hints at someone new without confirming it. It can be genuine caution, or it can be a way of testing the water before committing to anything real. → Full breakdown: What Is a Soft Launch in Modern Dating?

Vibe Check

An informal read on emotional and energetic compatibility — less about facts on a profile, more about whether the connection actually feels right in the moment. → Full breakdown: What Is a Vibe Check in Dating?

Dry Texting

Short, flat, low-effort replies — “lol,” “yeah,” “haha” — that leave a conversation with nowhere to go. It’s a small thing that tells you a fair amount about actual interest level. → Full breakdown: What Is Dry Texting?

Textationship

A connection that exists almost entirely through text — consistent, sometimes intense — but rarely or never translates into real time together. The intimacy is real; the relationship, in any practical sense, isn’t. → Full breakdown: What Is Textationship?

The Ick

A sudden, often disproportionate wave of revulsion toward someone you were previously attracted to — usually triggered by something small and hard to explain. It says less about the other person’s worth and more about a subconscious dealbreaker firing off. → Full breakdown: What Is the Ick?

Undefined Connections

Situationship

A connection with real emotional or physical intimacy that never gets a label or a defined commitment. It isn’t automatically a problem — plenty of people are genuinely fine at that level for a season of life. It becomes one when one person wants more and stays quiet about it, hoping the other comes around. → Full breakdown: What Is Situationship in Dating?

Simping

Doing far more — emotionally, financially, or in effort — than someone has earned or reciprocated, usually out of a hope for attention or affection that isn’t coming back at the same level. The line between generosity and simping isn’t the act itself; it’s whether it’s met with anything close to equal investment. → Full breakdown: What Is a Simp?

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between ghosting and orbiting? Ghosting is a full disappearance — no contact of any kind. Orbiting keeps a thin thread of digital presence alive (views, likes) without any direct communication. It’s a quieter, more ambiguous exit.

Is a situationship the same as casual dating? Not quite. Casual dating usually comes with a shared, spoken understanding that it’s light and non-exclusive. A situationship tends to be murkier — real intimacy, no agreed definition, and often two different people privately hoping for two different outcomes.

Is breadcrumbing always intentional? Not necessarily. Some people breadcrumb without a clear strategy behind it — they’re avoidant, or genuinely unsure what they want, and the intermittent contact is a symptom of that rather than a calculated move. The impact on you is the same either way, which is why it’s worth responding to the pattern, not the intent you’re guessing at.

How should I respond to zombieing? You’re not obligated to pick back up where things left off. It’s reasonable to ask what happened before re-engaging, and to actually pay attention to how they answer — that response usually tells you more than the reappearance itself.

Does experiencing the ick mean the person isn’t right for me? Not always. Sometimes it flags a real incompatibility; sometimes it’s fear or anxiety about closeness showing up in disguise. Worth sitting with before making a decision either way, rather than treating it as automatic proof of anything.

Where to Go From Here

Knowing the vocabulary is step one. The more useful question is what these patterns say about how you’re showing up in dating overall — how much clarity you’re asking for, how much ambiguity you’re willing to sit in, and why. A few places to go deeper:

• Modern Dating Is Broken — Here’s How to Win Anyway
• Why Modern Dating Is So Hard (And How to Navigate It Successfully)
• Why You Keep Attracting the Wrong Partners: Understanding Your Attachment Patterns
• How to Be Less Needy With Women: A Therapist’s Guide to Outcome Independence