Dating Lexicon in the Digital Era: New Names for Toxic’ Relationships

New media technologies such as social media, instant messaging and online dating apps have changed the way people talk about relationships. These forms of computer mediated communication have led to the proliferation of new words to describe how romantic relationships are formed, maintained and dissolved in the digital age (LeFebvre et al., 2019; Kamal, 2021; Kay & Courtice, 2022). Terms used to identify these relationship dynamics include metaphors that describe dissolution techniques (e.g. ghosting, orbiting, zombeing) and manipulative tactics (e.g. breadcrumbing, negging), words derived from famous films to define selfish behaviour (e.g. gaspering), emotional abuse (e.g. gaslighting) or cyberbullying (e.g. catfishing) and compounds to name online sexual harassment (e.g. cyberflashing). These toxic relationship terms have attracted the attention of mental health professionals and recent studies have shown that online daters with narcissistic and Machiavellian traits often use dysfunctional relationship patterns such as manipulation and selfish behaviour when flirting with a lover or to end a romantic relationship (Navarro et al., 2020; Jonason et al., 2021; Willis et al. 2023). From a linguistic perspective, these words are colloquial expressions with specific lexical features (e.g. figure of speech), some of them are neologisms (e.g. gaspering) and others are existing words with a new semantic meaning (e.g. grooming). The aims of this paper are to provide a list of the main dating terms used by online daters and to examine their etymology, definition, evolution and similarity of meanings. Particular attention will be paid to the dating terms that have become part of the psychological lexicon used by psychotherapists in academic discourse.