Breadcrumbing to zombieing, 10 Gen Z dating terms that dominated 2024

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Modern dating has its own language, and it can often get difficult to keep up with new terms for every situation that arises in a relationship. Well, the newer generations have embraced this language, coming up with innovative terminology to describe dating. This year especially saw the emergence of many such terms and trends. If you want to enter 2025 with a clear idea of complicated dating scenarios, here is a look at what was trending in 2024.

Breadcrumbing: A red flag, breadcrumbing is a manipulative practice where someone gives another person just enough attention to keep them interested, without committing to a real relationship. While this term has been used for quite a while, it gained more prominence in 2024.

Freak matching: It is an innovative term to define compatibility in relationships. It refers to dating someone who matches your interests and eccentricities. The term is also commonly used in friendships.

Boy sobering: It is an anti-dating trend, or movement, that took over social media in 2024. It encourages women to step away from dating and focus on themselves. Essentially, it's a detox for your love life.

Throning: This trend involves dating someone to elevate one's social status. In this situation, one flaunts their partner's influence i.e., "puts them one a throne", to create a good social reputation for themselves.

Affordating: This term reflects financial consciousness. It essentially means "dating on a budget", opting for meaningful experiences and gifts, instead of expensive and fancy ones.

Orbiting: It refers to a situation where someone has cut off communication with another person, but keeps passively interacting with them usually through social media likes and comments.

Love bombing: It is a manipulative dating trend wherein one showers excessive love, affection, attention, gifts, etc., on another person, often in an attempt to exert control.

Benching: This terms in the dating world takes its literal meaning, wherein one keeps another person on the sidelines as a backup option, while pursuing other romantic interests.

Chameleoning: It is a situation where one person changes their personality, interests and behaviours to align with their partners'. This is often an attempt to feel closer to their love interest.

Zombieing: While ghosting involves someone not replying and stopping all communication suddenly, zombieing is used when someone reappears after having ghosted another person for a long time.

Also Read: Forget grand gestures; small actions and moments are set to rule romance in 2025