Beige flag
A trait that is neither a warning nor a recommendation — a small, harmless quirk that tells you who someone is without telling you anything about how they will treat you.
Dating Glossary
The words people actually use when they talk about dating, defined plainly. Each term has its own page with what it means, how to spot it and what to do about it.
B
Benching
Being kept as a backup: warm enough that you don't leave, never quite chosen, while the other person keeps their attention on the options they would rather have.
Breadcrumbing
Occasional contact — a like, a late reply, a vague plan that never gets made — sent just often enough to keep someone interested while nothing ever moves forward.
C
Catfishing
Pretending online to be someone you are not — borrowed photos, a made-up name, an invented life — so that the person talking to you falls for a character instead of a real person.
Chatfishing
Letting an AI write your dating messages, so the person on the other end is being charmed by a language model's words while believing they are getting to know you.
Cloaking
Being blocked and deleted at the same moment someone stops replying — sometimes right after they leave you waiting at a restaurant — so no thread, no profile and nobody to ask is left behind.
Compatibility
How well two people actually fit in daily life — not a percentage a quiz can hand you, but something that only becomes visible in how two people treat each other once they are in it.
Cuffing season
The stretch from autumn to late winter when people who were happy on their own start looking for someone to spend the cold months with, and drift apart again once the weather turns.
F
Floodlighting
Unloading your heaviest history — trauma, diagnoses, the whole story of an ex — very early on, before there is enough trust between two people to hold it.
FOMO
The nagging sense that someone better is one more scroll away — short for fear of missing out, and the reason so many people stay half-present in the conversation they are already having.
Future faking
Big, vivid promises about a shared future — a trip, moving in together, meeting the family — used to fast-track closeness, with nothing behind them and no date ever attached.
G
Gaslighting
Repeatedly pushing someone to doubt their own memory or perception — insisting things they saw did not happen, or that they are imagining a problem — until they stop trusting their own account of events.
Ghosting
Cutting off all contact with no explanation and no goodbye — the messages simply stop, and the person never comes back to say why.
Green flag
A sign that someone is likely to be a good partner — usually something small and repeatable, like repairing after an argument, being decent to service staff, or saying plainly what they want instead of leaving you to guess.
Grim-keeping
Building a connection on the things you both cannot stand — the shared eye-roll, the same pet hates — rather than on what you both love.
H
Hardballing
Saying plainly and early what you want from a relationship — something serious, something casual, marriage, no kids — instead of waiting months to find out whether the other person wants the same thing.
K
Kittenfishing
Presenting a flattering but misleading version of yourself online — an old or edited photo, a rounded-up height, a job title with more shine than the work — without inventing the whole person the way catfishing does.
L
Limerence
An involuntary, persistent state of obsessive longing for one specific person — usually someone who has not returned the feeling — marked by intrusive thoughts and a constant reading of signals for proof of interest.
Love bombing
A rush of attention, compliments and intensity that arrives far earlier than the other person could actually know you, and that cools or turns sharp the first time you set a boundary.
Love languages
The popular idea that each person mainly gives and receives affection in one of five ways — words, time, gifts, acts of service or touch — and that couples do better when their languages match.
M
Match
The moment a dating app lets two people write to each other and opens a chat between them. It is permission to start a conversation and nothing more — not proof of interest, not proof of effort, and no promise that either of you will type.
O
Orbiting
Staying in someone's digital orbit after cutting off contact — no replies and no conversation, but every story watched and the occasional old post liked.
Q
Quiz dating
A way of meeting people online where the first filter is a set of questions you have to answer correctly, rather than photos you scroll past. Access to a conversation is earned by paying attention instead of by being picked.
R
Red flag
A warning sign in how someone behaves — a pattern in the way they treat you and treat other people, serious enough to tell you something about the future, not just a habit you happen to dislike.
Rizz
Charisma aimed at flirting: the knack of making a conversation land, so the other person enjoys being in it and wants it to keep going.
Romance scam
A fraud in which someone builds a romantic relationship over weeks or months purely to ask for money — and where the relationship itself, not the request, is the part that was constructed.
S
Situationship
A romantic connection with the shape of a relationship and none of the labels — the two people in it have never said out loud what it is, and often avoid the question on purpose.
Slow dating
Dating fewer people on purpose and giving each of them real attention — fewer matches, longer conversations, and meeting in person sooner instead of texting for months.
Soft launch
Hinting at a new relationship on social media without showing who it is — a hand in the frame, a second coffee cup, a shadow on the wall — so people know something is happening but not with whom.
Swipe fatigue
The flat, worn-out feeling that builds when you spend hours judging strangers from photos — the app stops being fun, opening it feels like a chore, and after a while everyone starts to look the same.
T
Talking stage
The stretch between matching and calling it dating, when two people message constantly, may already be meeting up, and still describe each other as someone they are just talking to.
The ick
A sudden, often disproportionate loss of attraction set off by something small — a gesture, a phrase, the way someone runs for a bus — which can be a real incompatibility surfacing or avoidance in disguise.
Z
Zombieing
The return of someone who ghosted you — months later, out of nowhere, with a casual message that acts as if the disappearance never happened.