LEWIS Hamilton has done his bit to go ‘Instagram official’ with Kim Kardashian by posting a picture of her. It’s not the only online dating trend we’re all supposed to be doing.
Throning
Dating someone to raise your status, which in the social media sphere means finding a partner with lots of followers and ‘clout’. This surely rarely happens in real-life, because under these weird new rules of attraction Margot Robbie would be shagging Mr Beast, and thank God she’s not.
Going Instagram official
Just the idea is hilariously stupid: there is NOTHING official about putting a picture on Instagram, and it certainly doesn’t entitle you to child maintenance or half of someone’s house. It’s like saying you’ve committed an Instagram murder by posting a picture of a gun.
Puffer fishing
Like a puffer fish, this date becomes defensive if you get too close. You don’t really need the tropical fish metaphor here, since there are plenty of perfectly adequate terms already, such as ‘fear of intimacy’ and ‘refusing to commit’. And let’s not forget ‘not being that into you’ and ‘losing interest once he’s got his leg over’.
Chalance dating
The opposite of ‘nonchalance’ if you’re stupid, and it means being serious about dates rather than having casual ‘situationships’. Good luck explaining this wanky, obscure term, because if you say ‘Situationships weren’t working for me, so I’m into chalance dating now’ any sane person will think ‘Jesus, what a bellend’, which isn’t conducive to sex.
Identity certainty
A sensible precaution of using online tools to verify that someone is who they claim to be, and not a scammer, married or a serial killer. Could there be a more promising start to a date than knowing you’re not going to end up in a shallow grave in the woods?
Soft-launching and hard-launching
Celebrities are always doing this, but you suspect there’s not the same level of public interest in you shagging a friend of a friend. You’ve probably simultaneously soft- and hard-launched several relationships already just by going into a pub and saying ‘Guys, this is Emma’.
Loud crushing
‘Loud crushing’ is the practice of being open about a crush on social media rather than playing it cool. You’ve got a feeling this trend was invented by terminally online teenage girls, because if the average woman saw dozens of posts about her by a bloke she barely knew she’d be rightly concerned it was going to progress to ‘forcible chloroforming’.
Breadcrumbing
This is when a romantic interest gives you small amounts of attention, similar to how the children in Hansel and Gretel follow a trail of crumbs, but doesn’t take it further. An example might be suggesting you meet up but then constantly bombing you out. Although surely that’s just your normal social life?
