Just stop it FFS…
Once again there’s a sating trend doing the rounds, and while this one has been around for a while, it’s recently reared it’s head on social media.
It’s called ‘orbiting’, and it’s basically next level stuff from our old friend, ‘ghosting’.
Ghosting is what cowards do, it’s basically when someone you’ve been seeing suddenly cuts off all contact, and seem to vanish, with no explanation whatsoever. No WhatsApps. No calls. Nothing.
But in ‘orbiting’, a phrase coined by writer Anna Iovine earlier this year, your former romantic interest probably isn’t commenting on your photos or routinely sliding into your DMs.
But they like your Instagram pictures, like your tweets, and watch your Snapchat stories (if you’re one of the seemingly demising crowd who still use it) and generally interact with you online without messaging you.
It’s done so the person doing the orbiting can keep them close enough to see each other, but far enough away that they never have to talk.
Dating expert Persia Lawson told the BBC: “It’s all about having one foot in and one foot out.
“It’s a way of them showing you, ‘Hey, I’m still here’, but not getting into a relationship. They’re keeping communication ever so slightly open, just in case they decide they want to start things up again.”
Speaking to The Independent, dating psychologist Madeleine Mason said: “These people have a warped idea that friendship can be based on likes alone without actually having to engage in real relationships.”
Describing it as a lazy form of interaction, said said: “In my opinion, your best bet is to delete and block these people, as they add little if any value to your life.”
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