Breadcrumbing is not love

Breadcrumbing, the latest trend sweeping across our dating lives.

But you know us modern day lovers, we have to label every action to justify why we weren’t good enough for someone, so here lays the reasoning behind the latest trend …. breadcrumbing.

The likelihood is, you’ve either been responsible of doing it or you’re constantly a victim of it if you dabble in online dating. Or, you have a habit of retreating back to an ex because they promised they’d be different this time.

Breadcrumbing is the newest form of ghosting but slightly more savage, so if you thought being ghosted sucked, you’re going to want to prepare yourself for this one.

The act of breadcrumbing is when someone is sending you just the right amount of flirty messages or empty promises without any real life action or commitment just to make sure you can keep them as a sideline option.

So let’s look at this from an online dating perspective. Think about the person who lands in your online dating inbox with a few smooth one liners and you’re thinking wow great, this one has looks and a personality, we could be onto a winner.

And it may be a bit premature of you, but in your head you’re already deleting all your dating apps and imagining what your insta posts will look like with them beside you, then they drop you the line you’ve been waiting for ‘We should definitely meet for a drink next week when you’re free‘ but what you don’t know is that this is the first of many breadcrumbs heading your way.

The next logical step is of course to trade numbers, and after that comes the exchange of flirty text messages back and forward for a few weeks, which of course is a nice welcome distraction for anyone. A new name and a new number feeding your little ego with lots of compliments.

Now cue the missed dates and the excuses. They’re ‘really’ sorry that they’ve had to cancel again but this project at work has kept them super late and they’re really annoyed they’re going to have to reschedule with you … again *eye roll*

But you’re a self respecting human being, two chances and that’s it, you don’t owe anything to someone you’ve never met, so you take the moral high ground, tell them it’s cool and not to worry about it because we all know these things can happen sometimes, but no messages that will encourage them to keep talking to you.

But a few weeks later here comes the next breadcrumb ‘hey stranger, how have you been doing, I know I still owe you a date, what are you up to on Friday after work?’ ugh, well I guess you can give them another chance right, you guys haven’t spoken in a few weeks but everyone gets busy with life right?

And so plans for the next date attempt commence.

The date comes around, you’ve been looking forward to it. Friday afternoon hits and you haven’t heard from them. But you’re pretty chilled, you wait until mid afternoon to check in, but guess what, you don’t get a reply …. until Sunday.

SUNDAY?! Your date was supposed to be on Friday …. ‘I’m so sorry about Friday, I’ve had a lot going on and it slipped my mind, but I’m gutted I missed out on finally seeing that gorgeous face in person’

And that right there is yet another breadcrumb they’ve tried to feed you. You know who likes breadcrumbs? Birds, and maybe ducks, but not people.

This breadcruming exchange will go on for as long as you keep replying, which will be for quite a while because who doesn’t love unprovoked attention and compliments from a total stranger, or from the person who once upon a time broke your heart? Well, us narcissistic millennials sure as hell love it!

Or if were looking at this from the ‘what we could expect to get from an ex‘ point of view, we could guess it would go something like this – After months of them not responding to the last message you sent in your previous exchange, all of a sudden you’ll look at your phone to see that they’ve sent you something like this ‘I was thinking about you at work today and how good your body feels, I need to see you this week it’s driving me crazy how much I want you. I’m missing us together‘ You get a little excited because subconsciously, this is the text you’ve been waiting for, the one you’ve wanted for months (since the last one they sent you) and this time, well this time you’re going to make sure you’re as available as possible for that dick head ex of yours who treats you like disposable underwear, you know the kind you get given in hospital? Yeah … that’s how bad this is, you’ve downgraded yourself to disposable underwear status.

And of course you exchange a few sexts back and forward, because you love hearing about all the things they say they’re going to do to you. But ultimately when it comes to actually seeing them, guess what? IT DOESNT HAPPEN! Because they’ve just fed you some breadcrumbs and f****d off.

I’m just hoping we can get over this sudden intolerance to gluten everyone seems to have because it seems we’re happy to let people feed us a lot of bread.

At least with ghosting you know you have to go cold turkey, like you’ve had lots of someone until they no longer want to give any of themselves to you and then it’s done, they leave your life and that’s that.

But breadcruming is the equivalent of someone saying ‘I don’t actually want you, I’m too busy with someone else right now, but I’ll keep you warm on the sidelines incase I decide I want to trade in for you at a later date, could be weeks, could be months, who knows, but if you could just wait there that would be great’

And I’m sure reading it out like that makes it sound bad, but I’m glad it sounds bad.

I hope it’s made you reconsider your self worth, or if you’re the person who’s responsible for breadcruming, I hope it’s made you realise how shitty it is!

Tinder is Dead

Back when I was at university Tinder had just started to become a recognised ‘thing’, so we’re talking about 6 years or so ago (yes I know it’s been around longer than that) and back then, people who I went to uni with would use it as a hook up platform.

It wasn’t something you used to build a meaningful connection with someone, it was more of a ‘you out tonight’ kind of chat, but with someone who’s social circle you hadn’t quite penetrated (excuse the pun) in real life. So here you are, about to get ready to go on a piss up and you’ve already lined up your one night stand potential, someone who isn’t linked too closely to your group of friends for it to be awkward, but also it’s not a stranger danger type situation.

So now lets skip ahead to the grand old year of 2019 and still, my mindset about this dating app has not changed. If you want to try a dating app for genuine dating and getting to know someone, in my opinion, you do not use Tinder.

Tinder is a place where narcissistic tendencies go to thrive. It’s like a party hub for the countries most illegible singletons.

Ok, so lets pretend for a second that I’m being unfair. I’d be willing to give Tinder the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t know of one successful relationship that has come from Tinder and the word successful is really key here! I know of relationships that have formed, however they are not in any way shape or form the #relationshipgoals we see sprawled across Instagram and Facebook.

I don’t particularly want to be with someone who cuts me off from the life I’ve spent 25 years building for myself, I don’t want them to come in and try and change who I am and what I stand for and honestly, the only kind of Tinder relationship I’ve seen is exactly what I’ve outlined above.

I can’t be bothered to put on a fake smile for someone and sit across a table discussing my life and my career just to find out they’re actually there just to get into my knickers. If I wanted a quick shag with someone I think I’d put less effort in than that and pull someone on a night out, that way I don’t have to go through the painful explanation of how my ‘date’ went the next day when everyone asks.

I can’t say that Shelia in the office would be too impressed with hearing about the worst sex I’ve had in my life with a total stranger, who’s pictures showed them from a much more flattering angle than how they looked in real life. So not only was the sex awful, but you also had to try and only look at the left side of their face (their photogenic side).

Yeah I think I’d rather not ….

Whereas I think people just assume one night stands happen on a night out, no one asks for all the juicy gossip of how you got shit faced and threw up in your own shoe, so surely, you might as well add in a night of very forgettable sex to that and no one will ever be any the wiser!

Don’t get me wrong, online dating can be a really good place to meet your forever person (so I’ve heard) but Tinder …. well in my opinion Tinder is dead.

I think we need to start actually saying hello to each other in real life, yeah I know it’s scary, but apparently that’s how people met before technology came along and destroyed romantic ‘how we met’ stories.

Personally, I’d rather end up marrying someone I had a story with, maybe someones who’s been my best friend, or someone who I would never have met in normal circumstances but fate bought us together by chance and now here we are.

Most of us will tend to go back to a platform like Tinder because we like the feeling of knowing we could have anyone we wanted, it’s a feel good factor and big confidence boost seeing all the people who’ve liked you that you then choose to disregard 80% of just because you can. But honestly, Tinder is not a good place to find a rebound!