Disappearing acts
Ghosting: they stop replying entirely, with no explanation. Soft ghosting: they keep reacting to your messages with a like or an emoji but never reply properly, so the conversation dies while looking alive. Orbiting: they have stopped talking to you but still watch every story and like every post. Submarining: they vanish for weeks, then resurface with a casual 'hey stranger' as though nothing happened. Zombieing is the same move with an apology attached. The right response to all five is identical, treat silence as the answer and stop maintaining the thread.
Keeping you on the hook
Breadcrumbing: sporadic, low-effort contact designed to keep you interested without ever meeting. Benching: you are kept as a backup while they pursue someone else, brought off the bench when their first choice is unavailable. Cushioning: they maintain several flirtations as a soft landing in case their main relationship ends. Pocketing: months in, you have met none of their friends and appear nowhere in their life. Stashing is the same thing. The common thread is a mismatch between how much they text and how much they show up.
Naming the relationship, or refusing to
Situationship: sustained romantic or sexual involvement with no agreed label, direction or exclusivity, the defining term of the last five years. DTR: 'define the relationship', the conversation that ends a situationship one way or the other. Soft launch: posting a partner in a deliberately unidentifiable way, a hand, a shoulder, a second coffee cup. Hard launch: the face-and-name post. Monkey-barring: refusing to let go of one relationship until the next is secured.
Bad behaviour with a friendly name
Love bombing: overwhelming intensity, gifts and future-talk very early, usually followed by withdrawal once you are invested. Negging: a backhanded compliment used to make you seek approval. Kittenfishing: not a fake identity, but a heavily flattering one, old photos, an inflated job, a shaved five years. Catfishing is the full fake. Cookie jarring: keeping you as a snack while they pursue something they consider more serious. Paperclipping: reappearing periodically purely to confirm they can still get a reaction.
“Most dating slang is just a name for something rude people have always done.”
Newer terms you will start seeing
Nanoship: a connection that flares and dies inside a week, usually entirely in chat. Micro-mance: small, low-stakes gestures replacing formal dates. Loud looking: openly stating on your profile exactly what you want, in reaction to years of ambiguity. Throning: dating someone for their status or following. Fleabagging: repeatedly choosing people who are obviously wrong for you. Beige-flagging: a quirk that is not a red flag, just a sign someone is a bit dull. Ick: the specific, often trivial moment attraction collapses.
The pattern behind the vocabulary
Nearly every term above describes a form of ambiguity that apps make cheap. When contact costs nothing and the pool feels endless, keeping options open is easy and being explicit feels expensive. That is why the terms that describe clarity: DTR, hard launch, loud looking, are the ones worth adopting, and the rest are worth learning only so you can recognise them and leave sooner. If you keep meeting the same pattern, the fastest fix is usually a different app rather than a better response.