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Nitara Rebello

Gen Z's Love Lingo

We live in a modern world where we are not just advancing technologically, but also through romance and dating. Gen Z’s ideas of love constantly keep emerging. The generation is focused on cherishing the present and living in the moment. Following are some Love Lingo’s to keep track of love looks in the 23rd century:


Situationship


A little more than a friendship and a little less than a relationship. Ever found yourself in such a ‘situation’? Well, you’re in a situationship. A non-committed romantic relationship where 2 partners are not exclusive but pretend like they are in a relationship. This is traditionally, also known as friends with benefits. So the next time someone is sharing with you and they seem confused about the relationship they share with someone else, you know they’re in a situationship.


Ghosting


A term commonly used, that we are most familiar with. Ghosting is when a person you’re dating abruptly ceases communicating with you and makes no indication that they’re no longer interested. They usually don’t tell you they don’t want to move things forward because they are too terrified to do so.


DTR


DTR stands for ‘Define The Relationship’. Have you ever found that a couple of months into your friendship, you often hold hands, have special eye contact moments, and there are cute flirty texts being exchanged? So now you’re wondering what it is that you share with the person. Are we dating? Are we exclusive? Here’s where defining the relationship can be crucial. It involves two people having a conversation regarding whether they want to be mutually exclusive or continue their friends-with-benefits (FWB) relationship.


Benching


Benching can be understood as serving your notice period. There is less interaction, and fewer calls, and outings. Either because the relationship is slowly coming to an end or the person you are being benched by is seeing other people and deciding who works best for them, or solely because they want to feel loved and cared for, but do not want to reciprocate.


Fleabagging


Fleabagging involves breaking up and getting back together, over and over again. I’m sure some of us are guilty of this love lingo. We keep wanting to give that person a chance, only to feel hurt again. If you constantly go back to the same person, you’re engaging in flea bagging.


Pink Flag


We’ve heard of relationship red flags and green flags. The modern dating world incorporates a pink flag into its lingo as well. These flags are essentially less drastic red flags that you may tend to overlook. It could be because you want to give the relationship more time or because those issues aren’t as important at the time. For example, you are a social drinker and your partner drinks every third day. You might overlook it, even though it bothers you. However, after a couple of months you may realize, it has resulted in a change in their behavior, thereby causing hindrance to the relationship. This may imply a warning sign has been overlooked.


Wokefishing


In a world of modern and online dating, we can be anyone through our screens. Pretending to have strong views and opinions on relevant topics just to impress another person is a perfect example. Often we might even engage in activities we do not otherwise engage in, just to be in sync with the other person. These behaviors often happen along political and social lines.


Zombieing


Zombeing is a mix of ghosting and flea bagging. As the name suggests, when you get ghosted and the person decides to come back and pretend like nothing ever happened. The next time your hinge or tinder date decides to reappear after ghosting you, you know what to call it!


Bread Crumbing


Sending out flirty but non-committal social cues—also known as “breadcrumbs”—in an effort to quickly entice a love partner is known as bread crumbing. It is essentially leading someone on. As the name suggests, you are only giving out crumbs and not the whole slice of bread.

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