The terms

A working glossary of modern dating words — ghosting, orbiting, soft launch, benching and the rest — each defined in plain language, with what it looks like in practice.

An open notebook covered in small unreadable handwriting on a pale desk, a green pen across the page and a phone face-down beside it, with someone working at a laptop at the edge of the frame. — AI-generated imageEach of these words names one specific behaviour. Most arguments about them are really arguments about which word applies.

Section last checked August 21, 2026

dating termsglossary

Modern dating vocabulary describes patterns of behaviour, not types of people. Each entry in this glossary gives one term a short, self-contained definition — what it means, how it is used, and what it looks like in practice — so you can tell it apart from the terms that sit next to it.

often confused with ghosting orbiting and haunting

About this section

A word is useful when it lets you describe something you could not describe before, and useless when it is only a label to put on a person. Every entry here is written the first way: what the word means, where it came from, how it is used, and what it looks like from the receiving end.

These are conversational words, not clinical ones. None of them is a diagnosis, and no page here treats them as one.

The terms

Pages in this section

One honest letter a week