Your Muddy Matches Guide To Online Dating Terminology

When you’re first dipping your (muddy) toe into online dating it can sometimes seem like a whole new world. As well as dealing with new types of dating, different dating etiquettes and deciphering a Muddy Matches online dating profile, you’ve got the dedicated dating lingo to deal with too. Some of these are great news, other times you may need to continue your search for your Muddy Match.

Ghosting, catfishing and breadcrumbing. What on earth do they mean? Here’s your Muddy Matches expert guide to the online dating lexicon.

IRL

Literally ‘In Real Life’. Use it to refer to taking your online messaging conversation offline and meeting in person on a first date. The question is, though, are they just as attractive IRL?

Freeclimbing

Not an extreme sport, more of an online dating research approach – and one that is so easy to do in today’s social media life. Picture the scene; you’ve found a potential ‘Muddy Match’ online and you want to find out everything about them. Cue the Googling, social media searching and ‘liking’ their photos from ten years ago. You may have forgotten one thing though; those pesky little notifications that lets them know they’re being researched. If this is you it might be worth reading the Muddy Matches blog on ‘The pros and cons of researching your date’.

BAE

Either an acronym for ‘before anyone else’, or a shortening of ‘babe’. When someone refers to you as their BAE it’s good news. We don’t take responsibility for the cringe factor though.

Catfishing

Catfishing is not good news. A ‘catfisher’ is an online dater who creates a fake persona, using false photos, to take in other online daters. As well as for personal kicks, it can be done as part of a con. At Muddy Matches your security and enjoyment of online dating is our number one priority. We have a Customer Services team dedicated to checking that all online dating profiles on Muddy Matches are genuine. However, if you still have concerns about any profiles you find, hit the ‘Report’ button which appears on every dating profile and our team will look into it further.

Ghosting

Thought everything was going so well? Online dating messages flying backwards and forwards? But… you suddenly find that conversation is suddenly cut off and you hear no more from your online match. You’ve been ghosted.

Haunting

The return of the ghost. You’ve moved on from being ghosted and suddenly they pop right back in to your inbox.

Slow Fade

Like ghosting but slower. Your so-called ‘Muddy Match’ takes longer and longer to reply to your online messages, their messages get shorter and less detailed and then, eventually, contact ceases. It’s time to move on.

Sunday Night Fever

Sunday Night Fever is the new Saturday Night Fever. Did you know that Sunday evening is one of the busiest times of the week in the online dating world? Even after a weekend well spent, countryside singles may feel a little lonely. Combined with a sense of impending doom about Monday morning and a few spare Sunday evening hours, we’ve seen conversations spark like never before. Expect to see your inbox deluged with messages from anyone and everyone.

Breadcrumbing

The odd flirty message here and there leads you on to think that something romantic could happen. Like many a sad tale, though, it never comes to pass. This is breadcrumbing; letting you believe that it’s going to turn in to something serious when they have no intention of taking it any further or meeting IRL.

Benching

AKA ‘they’re just not that into you. Benching means when someone keeps in touch but never quite fixes up a concrete time for a first date with you. Plans might fall through, they cancel on you, an emergency turns up. Basically, they like the attention they get from you and want to stay in touch ‘just in case’ but you’re not their BAE. Sorry.