Nicky Wake, founder of dating apps Chapter 2 & Widow’s Fire, has shared a dating vocabulary guide to help online dating newcomers. For widows and widowers who are re-entering the online dating scene, they may not be familiar with terms such as ‘cushioning’ or ‘phubbing’.
Chapter 2 is a dating app, founded for widows, by widows. It shared that there are around 3.1 million widows in the UK, many of whom won’t have recent experience in the dating world.
“I was widowed at age 51, and when I finally decided to get back into the online dating world I noticed that much had changed. Suddenly, I was being bombarded with unfamiliar terms that I found myself Googling every few minutes, and the pace of the conversations wasn’t something I was used to”, Nicky Wake shared.
“It can be daunting getting back into dating, especially as an older person, or someone who has lost a spouse. And it makes it all the more difficult to persevere with a dating app when the whole experience seems somewhat overwhelming and alien”, she highlighted.
Wake has picked out some key dating lingo that singles will need to know for 2024:
- Beige Flags: Indicates that a person may simply struggle to describe themselves in a profile. Or, it could mean that the person is boring online and in real life.
- Benching: Refers to the disrespectful action of keeping someone stuck on the sidelines waiting for you.
- Breadcrumbing: Keeping barely enough contact to keep someone hanging on.
- Cuffing Season: Refers to the period of time (usually the colder months of the year) where single people pair up to avoid feeling lonely on special occasions, such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or New Year’s Eve.
- Cushioning: Refers to staying in touch with one or more people so you have backup possibilities if your current relationship ends (AKA cookie jarring).
- DTR Conversation: ‘Define the relationship’ – refers to the moment in a relationship where you discuss exactly what you are as a couple.
- Eclipsing: Liking all new hobbies, passions, and interests that happen to match exactly what your new partner loves.
- Freckling: A partner only seems to want a relationship when the weather is mild (opposite of cuffing).
- Ghosting: When a partner completely and suddenly stops communicating with you for no apparent reason.
- Kitten Fishing: Misrepresenting yourself in an online portfolio with tiny inaccuracies.
- Catfishing: Luring someone into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona or imagery.
- Micro-Cheating: Secrecy, emotional affairs, and heavy flirting. This type of cheating doesn’t cross physical boundaries but would still hurt your partner if they knew.
- Phubbing: Going on a date only for your partner to stare at their phone the entire time.
- Pocketing: Refers to a person who keeps a relationship secret by failing to announce their partner to their family, friends, or loved ones.
- Slow Fade: Refers to a person who slowly begins to be less connected and increasingly unavailable in a relationship.
- Stashing: Similar to pocketing, stashing refers to a person who refuses to introduce their romantic partner to anyone in their lives and does not mention the relationship anywhere on social media.
- Textlationship: Refers to two people who have a good connection and chemistry in texts and messages that does not translate to real life.
- Wokefishing: A deceitful act where a person pretends to be something they’re not, usually in a way that makes them seem more open-minded than they are.
- Zombie-ing: When a former partner, or love interest, who ghosted you comes back into your life and tries to pretend as if nothing happened.
Beyond just dating lingo, emojis can be important for communication as well. Widow’s Fire, the sister site to Chapter 2, has released a new guide for clarifying this specific part of chatting.
Widow’s Fire takes its name from a term defined as a ‘strong desire for sex following bereavement and is often considered a natural part of the grieving process’. It is a platform that is specifically focused on helping individuals explore the no-strings-attached casual dating following bereavement.
To find out more about these dating platforms, check out this episode of The GDI Podcast where we spoke with Nicky Wake about her plans for Chapter 2 and Widow’s Fire.
Find out more about Chapter 2 and Widow’s Fire on their websites.
