[imagesource: Cosmo]

Dating back in the day seemed a simple affair.

You latched onto someone in your early 20s, married them, churned out children, and died of the common cold at the ripe old age of 45.

Fast forward a few hundred years, and dating apps have changed the game, alongside complex romance scams that have seen Cape Town become the epicentre of business.

Then there are all the new terms being coined to deal with behaviour on said apps, many of which we covered a few years back.

Some of the standouts included ‘ghosting’, ‘bread-crumbing’, ‘cuffing season’, and ‘benching’.

You have to roll with the times, though, which means it’s probably worth getting clued up on some of the dating terms people are using at this very minute.

Somewhere out there, somebody is engaging in ‘Elsa’ing’, named after that Frozen character, which is when someone “freezes you out” without explanation.

I thought that was ‘ghosting’?

Mashable also points out ‘Jekylling’, which is when someone seems nice at first but turns nasty or weird. If you’re talking about ‘flatlining’, one is referring to when a conversation between prospective mates goes totally dead.

Why is it ‘Elsa’ing’, but not ‘Jekyll’ing’? Either way, I’m sensing a great deal of overlapping here.

We soldier on:

Another buzzword concocted by a dating app’s marketing department that did catch on recently is “fleabagging,” which means dating people who are wrong for you…

“Whelming” is a new one created by a reporter. This is the act of being overwhelmed by your dating app matches and discussing it with your matches, aka being inconsiderate…

In 2018, I coined “orbiting,” which came out of me being confused and bitter that someone I dated stopped replying to my texts but had the gall to keep looking at my Instagram stories.

Oh, the nerve!

Via another Mashable article, we found these:

Cloaking – A bit distinct from ghosting, cloaking if when a potential suitor dons an invisibility cloak after setting up a date — meaning, they block you on the app you matched on and whatever communication app (WhatsApp, iMessage, etc.) so you can’t keep in contact…

Submarining – Submarining is the term for when someone has not made contact with you for a while, then all of a sudden comes up to the surface with a “What’s up?” text…

Kittenfishing – Kittenfishing is “light” catfishing: using old or edited photos, exaggerating your interests in order to seem more appealing, etc…

At this point, I’m pulling out, but you’ll find more of these weird buzzwords here.

Nothing quite like 21st-century tech to introduce so many new ways to feel rejected.

[sources:mashable&mashable]