- "Orbiting" is a new dating trend. It's when a person doesn't completely ghost but keeps involved with you from a distance.
- For instance, a person might ignore your texts yet views your Instagram stories.
- Orbiting might be a manifestation of the fear of losing out on a potential dating opportunity.
You might know orbiting as the thing that the moon does around the earth. You might also know Orbit as a brand of gum. But there's a new meaning to the word, and you probably won't like it.
In the world of online dating and social media, ghosting is all too prevalent — you know, when someone you're dating point blank stops responding to your texts with zero explanation.
But with orbiting the person doesn't disappear completely. Instead, he or she remains visible in your life (often digitally) but never in direct contact.
"I dubbed it 'orbiting' during a conversation with my colleague Kara, when she poetically described this phenomenon as a former suitor 'keeping you in their orbit' — close enough to see each other; far enough to never talk,"wrote Anna Iovine for Man Repeller.
In Iovine's case, someone she dated wouldn't respond to texts but would watch her Instagram and Snapchat stories. She theorizes that orbiters might not currently want to date, but they're afraid to let you go completely in case it works out later.
Maybe it's time we all just make up our minds and decide whether or not we actually want to date someone and act accordingly.
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