Cuffing to Breadcrumbing: Exploring the new-age 'romantic' lingo of the young

Disclaimer No humans were harmed during the writing of this article But the writersmdashone a cardcarrying boomer and the other a certified Gen Zmdashdid come close to blowsIt began as it mostly does with a tweet Someone asked on Twitter what ldquodry datingrdquo meant Someone else provided an explanation A third person referred to something called ldquobenchingrdquo and a horrified fourth wondered just how many of these words were floating around in 2024 And the ever helpful Twitterati obliged with an entire listmdashWoke Fishing Zombeing Benching Breadcrumbing Cuffing Cushioning Dry Dating Enmeshment Fexting Freckling Groundhogging KittenFishing Pocketing Roommate Syndrome Slow Fade and StonewallingAs mindnumbing as the literary murder was to witness this is the boomer writing we decided in the interests of selfless and fearless journalism to delve deeper and see what modern love meant for young blood And of course the Gen Z writer piped up saying shersquod actually done some of these thingsAbhishek Singh and Tanisha DasThe results were interesting Woke Fishing 21yearold Tanisha Das tells us means pretending to share the same political or social opinions as your current love interest To be honest itrsquos something wersquove been doing for ages Remember all those times you faked being a passionate leftwinger or acted like veganism was going to save the world because your crush thought so Itrsquos called Woke FishingldquoWe donrsquot do it purposelyrdquo says Das ldquoWe just donrsquot have time for games We find it better to attach a label to everything so that we have clarity and donrsquot keep anyone hanging like millennials or boomersrdquo OuchThe advanced version is Kitten Fishing a milder form of Catfishing where you introduce little lies in your dating profile in an attempt to be more appealingWersquore already aware of what ghosting meansmdashsuddenly cutting off contact with someone after leading them on for a period of time Zombieing apparently is worse Or as Aryan Raj puts it more effed upldquoGhosting is still manageable when a person just vanishes from your life without any warning or signs I have been ghosted in the past But oh my God Zombieing is when a person comes and goes in and out of your life and doesnrsquot let you move on That hurtsrdquo he saysWe follow the bread crumbs pun intended to Breadcrumbing which is when someone leads you on by flirting or making you feel special without any intention of an actual romance Benching where you set someone aside to date other people for a while Cushioning which is the practice of seeking other potential romances while already dating someone to keep options open thatrsquos cheating the boomer is screaming and Dry Dating meaning people going on dates without getting romantically involved It also means going on dates that involve no alcohol Full support thereTherersquos also getting Cuffed the 2024 word for getting committed to someone Enmeshment used to refer to a relationship that is so intertwined that boundaries are getting blurred and one of the two partners is feeling suffocated Groundhogging where you keep getting into a relationship with the same person over and over again expecting the magic to happen each time and Pocketing mdashthe refusal to introduce a partner to family friends or the world in general indicating a lack of seriousnessAnd then it starts to go bad First comes the Fexting or fighting over text message Then comes Roommate Syndrome where the romance starts to fade and yoursquore reduced to being roommates and then the Slow Fade where one or both partners end the relationship by slowlydecreasing communicationOh and there are the seasons We no longer have summer and winter We have Cuffing Season which is when you get into a relationship only during the colder months and end it as soon as it starts getting warmer and Freckling where the cycle is reversedWersquore not done yet the Gen Z writer is snickering right now Flags too have diversified They are no longer just red or green We now have pink flagsmdashslightly odd or toxic traits that might turn into red flags later and also ahellip wait for ithellip beige flagldquoThat is how you explain your partnerrsquos odd behaviours which are on the verge of becoming unusual but not quite thererdquo 23yearold Abhishek Singh tells us ldquoThose weird patterns you see in a person which are cute and not disturbing but you do remember these while yoursquore questioning your choices lsquowhenrsquo the relationship has endedrdquoThe use of ldquowhenrdquo instead of ldquoifrdquo is not lost on us The Gen Z writer is smiling The boomer is not