Dating Slang Quiz
Dating Slang Quiz
Fifteen terms. Find out whether you actually know what people are saying.
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- 4minutes
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You got every term right. Genuinely rare. Send this to the friend who still thinks a situationship is a relationship.
Slang moves fast. Half of these will mean something else by next year.
Why dating slang moves so fast
Most of these words did not exist ten years ago, and a few did not exist two years ago. They spread because they name something people had already experienced but had no shorthand for. Nobody needed a word for being kept as a backup option until enough people were being kept as backup options that the pattern became recognizable.
That is the useful thing about this vocabulary, underneath the jokes. Naming a behavior makes it easier to spot and much easier to talk about. “I think you are breadcrumbing me” is a far more productive sentence than “I feel weird about how you text.”
The quiz above covers fifteen of the terms currently in common use. The glossary below covers those plus the ones that come up most often alongside them.
The full dating slang glossary
Rizz
Rizz is romantic charisma, the ability to attract someone through charm. It is shortened from the middle of the word charisma, and “unspoken rizz” describes the version that works without a chat-up line.
Situationship
A situationship is a romantic connection with no agreed label and usually no conversation about one. The defining feature is the missing definition, not the distance or how long it has run.
Breadcrumbing
Breadcrumbing is giving someone small, irregular attention with no intention of taking things further. Enough contact to keep them interested, never enough to build on.
Benching
Benching is keeping someone in reserve while pursuing a preferred option. The contact stays just warm enough that they remain available if the first choice falls through.
Love bombing
Love bombing is overwhelming affection, attention or gifts early in a relationship, used to build obligation quickly. The pattern usually reveals itself the first time the other person sets a boundary and is met with guilt.
Cuffing season
Cuffing season is the colder stretch from roughly October to February when people pair up for company through the winter. A noticeable share of those relationships end in spring.
Delulu
Delulu is short for delusional and describes optimism about someone that the available evidence does not support. It is almost always used self-aware and affectionately rather than as an insult.
Beige flag
A beige flag is a harmless quirk that is too strange to be a green flag and too minor to be a red one. It says nothing about the relationship, only that the person is specific.
Orange peel theory
The orange peel theory asks whether a partner does small unasked-for acts of care, like peeling an orange for you, and whether they do it without irritation. It is a test of willingness, not of the task.
The ick
The ick is a sudden loss of attraction, usually triggered by something small and often unfair to the other person. Once it lands it is very difficult to reverse.
Soft launch
A soft launch is posting a new partner without showing their face or naming them: an elbow in frame, two coffees, a hand. The hard launch is the post where they are clearly identified.
Zombieing
Zombieing is when someone who ghosted you resurfaces months later, usually with a low-effort message and no acknowledgment of the disappearance.
Submarining
Submarining is the sharper version of zombieing. They return and behave as though the silence never happened at all, picking up mid-conversation.
Pocketing
Pocketing is keeping a partner separate from the rest of your life, with no friends, family, photos or overlap. It usually signals the relationship is being kept provisional.
Ghostlighting
Ghostlighting combines ghosting with gaslighting. Someone disappears, returns, and then reframes the disappearance as something you imagined or overreacted to.
Curving
Curving is deflecting someone’s interest indirectly rather than declining outright. The replies keep arriving but stay vague and never move anything forward.
Fleabagging
Fleabagging is repeatedly dating people who are obviously wrong for you, named after the pattern in the television series Fleabag.
Kittenfishing
Kittenfishing is a milder catfish. The person is real, but the photos are years old, the height is rounded up and the job title is generous.
Roster
A roster is the group of people someone is talking to or casually seeing at the same time, spoken about the way a squad list is.
DTR
DTR stands for define the relationship, the conversation that turns a situationship into something with a name. Avoiding it is what keeps most situationships going.
Which of these actually matter
Most of this vocabulary is entertainment. A few terms describe behavior worth taking seriously, and it helps to know which is which.
| Term | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Love bombing | Serious | A recognized pattern in coercive relationships, not just intense affection |
| Ghostlighting | Serious | Involves someone denying your accurate memory of events |
| Breadcrumbing | Worth naming | Sustained low-level contact that keeps you unavailable to anyone else |
| Pocketing | Worth naming | Often signals you are being kept as an option rather than a partner |
| Benching | Worth naming | Same reason, from the other direction |
| The ick | Mostly fun | Real feeling, but usually says more about your interest level than about them |
| Beige flag | Just fun | By definition has no bearing on anything |
| Delulu | Just fun | Self-deprecating and used affectionately |
| Cuffing season | Just fun | A seasonal observation, not a behavior anyone does to you |
If a term in the serious column describes something happening to you right now, the vocabulary has done its job. The next step is a conversation, or a decision, rather than another quiz.
Frequently asked questions
What does rizz mean?
Rizz means romantic charisma or the ability to attract someone through charm. It is shortened from the middle of the word charisma and entered mainstream use in 2023.
What is a situationship?
A situationship is a romantic connection that has no agreed label and usually no conversation about one. It can involve exclusivity, regular contact and real feelings while still lacking any definition.
What is the difference between ghosting and zombieing?
Ghosting is the disappearance. Zombieing is the return, when someone who ghosted you messages again months later as though little time has passed.
What does delulu mean?
Delulu is short for delusional and describes believing something about a crush or relationship that the evidence does not support. It is nearly always used self-aware and in good humor.
Is breadcrumbing the same as benching?
They overlap but differ in intent. Breadcrumbing is minimal attention with no plan to progress. Benching is deliberately keeping someone in reserve while pursuing someone else.
How many questions is the dating slang quiz?
Fifteen. It takes about four minutes, gives you an explanation after every answer, and lists every term you missed at the end.
Is my score saved anywhere?
No. The quiz runs entirely in your browser and nothing is stored or sent to a server. Refreshing the page resets it.
Test yourself on the rest
- Beige Flag Calculator — score the harmless quirks
- Breadcrumbing Test — find out if that is what is happening
- Ghostlighting Quiz — when a ghost rewrites the story
- Orange Peel Theory Test — the small acts of care test
- Situationship Quiz — find out where you actually stand