After a devastating relationship breakup, I threw myself into the dating scene by registering on Hily. I had over 100 dates - some absolute disasters, some pretty average, and some that were actually great. So many stories to tell and insights to share with you guys!
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15 Gen Z Slang Terms for Love and Romance
When you don’t keep up with the current dating slang, it can be hard to date casually. Of course, it’s embarrassing when you don’t understand the language your date uses – and of course, you want this embarrassment to be fixed. If you’re old-school, you’ll search for a slang dictionary here. But the problem is there are no decent books on modern dating terms. Even if you manage to find one, Gen Z slang for love updates faster than books are usually published.
So what, stop doing anything at all?
Well, don’t panic. Effective communication can be difficult to achieve, but that doesn’t mean it has to be that daunting. Learning slang can take some time indeed. But once you master it, pay attention to the context, and remain open to different interpretation options, you’ll see that using the love language of Gen Z can be as easy as reciting the alphabet.
7 Modern Dating Terms That Are With Us for Long
“Regular” monogamous or exclusive relationships are no longer the only love options for most people, so Gen Z slang is used to describe terms for many kinds of relationships. Actually, the list of slang phrases is much longer than ours, but these 4 relationship types are most widely used.
1. Situationship
Finding yourself in a situationship means being in that weird in-between phase of just being friends and being an all-out couple.
When in a situationship, you and your partner may participate in couple-based activities, such as having sex, kissing, and going on dates. However, it is more than likely that you both remain unexclusive and are still testing the waters of the relationship.
Related reading: Situationship vs Friends with Benefits: Which Is Better for You?
2. Textationship
Textationship is the type of relationship that happens when you and a “partner” communicate in a semi-romantic manner through text messages only. This type of interaction can happen between coworkers, potential partners, and even friends.
A textationship may become the basis of an emotional affair or even a “real” (in traditional terms) relationship. Nevertheless, due to the way we communicate as people, love through text messages happens unintentionally rather than based on a mutual agreement. Becoming friends is a more realistic scenario, though.
3. ENM: Ethical Non-Monogamy
ENM refers to a romantic relationship or a sexual relationship. In it, a person can be romantically involved with a wide range of potential partners – but everyone they are in a relationship with is aware of the situation.
There is a slight difference between ENM and polygamy relationships: ethical non-monogamy is not about dating each other. In this type of polygamous relationship, a person may be dating multiple people, but the others may not be dating each other. The exact dynamics are always based on mutual agreement.
Related reading: ENM Relationship: What Is Ethical Non-Monogamy?
4. Cuffing Season
Cuffing season is the time of the year when it gets colder outside, and people look for partners to spend this winter period with.
What do you do when the warm weather is over, and you don’t have a romantic partner? You don’t want to spend these colder months without the benefits of a generous, romantic partner! At least, that’s what modern slang terms for dating and relationships suggest.
Related reading: Cuffing Season: Will You Take Part?
5. Affordating
Affordating means going on a date on a budget.
The cost of living has increased, and it affects everyone – whether you’re in a relationship or not. In the world of high prices, Gen Z has coined the term affordating: because the lower the price you can make your affordate, the better it is.
6. Sober Dating
Sober dating means a date that involves no alcohol.
When you are sober, you spend your time together focusing on the moment, rather than muffling the moments you have together with booze or drugs. That’s why sober dating is so cool for Gen Z: it means that you get to see your partner act like they would in their everyday life.
7. Cuffle
A cuffle is a date that is all about cuddling without any sort of expectation of sexual intimacy
Urban Dictionary
Cuffle makes dating cute and comfortable. During a cuddle date or cuffle, all you have to do is cuddle up with the person you are in, or want to be in a relationship with, and spend your time talking, watching movies, or looking at your phones and sharing dank memes with each other.
8 Slang Terms That Appeared in a Dating World in 2023
When it comes to internet dating lingo, safety has become an absolute trend in 2023. That’s why Gen Z has coined different terms regarding safety – all for not being afraid to talk and build successful relationships openly.
1. Red Flags
Red flags are not new in the dating culture – but the usage of this term is absolutely booming this year. In essence, it refers to the warning signs a person may display, warning you about the kind of life you’ll have around them. Any red flag is useful because it’s a universal sign that tells you about bigger things that won’t work in any relationships.
A person who gets angry easily or is known to constantly lie is often seen as being a red flag. That’s the situation when one trait predicts their behavior in numerous potential situations.
Related reading: 14 Red Flags in Your New Male Squeeze
14 Red Flags in Women – Here’s Your Checklist
2. Daterview
Daterview is one of the most confusing dating terms. But it’s much easier when you break it down into “date” and “interview” parts – this way, it turns into a sort of a job interview where a person is trying to convince you to let them go on a date with you.
When you are doing a daterview, ask questions to find out their green any sort of red flag making you do a big yikes or nothing green flags instead. That’s why a daterview is a great way for you to get to know the other person, as well as scope out any potential issues that they might possess.
3. Love Haze
Love haze refers to the blindness one might experience due to the sense of love that they feel for the other person.
Essentially, love haze is another way to describe the act of wearing rose-colored glasses. Having a friend to give you perspective can help you clear the love haze so you notice when something is wrong.
4. Tase
Tase is a combination of the words “talking” and “phase,” meaning the initial phrase of the relationship when everything looks bright and cool.
So whenever you’re in tase, don’t fall into love haze!
5. Rizz
Meet the winner of The 2023 Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year contest! Taken from the word charisma, Rizz is a word that means to be a charismatic person.
You may be described has having rizz if you do an exceptionally good dance move. Or you may be told that you’re giving rizz if you manage to use your words and talking skills to get someone to agree to a date with you.
6. Next on Deck
Next on deck is a phrase that is used to express a back up plan, or the next person in line for when you date.
Basically in todays hectic online dating lifestyle, and with social media it can be difficult to keep up with the dating universe. Therefore, when a date falls short, this generation has made a point to make plans for just in case scenarios.
Here’s a sentence to explain the meaning further: The new trend is to have a potential partner who is next on deck in case your main relationship is no longer working.
7. Kitten-Fishing
If you know about cat fishing you can probably guess what this is. Kitten fishing is all about stretching the truth about yourself but in a way that is believable.
If you are a 5’10” blonde woman with brown eyes, you might say that you’re a 5’9″ bleached hair blonde woman with hazel eyes instead. If so, you’re kitten-fishing!
8. Benching
Benching is best explained as a life scenario. Imagine that you’ve been seeing someone, when they suddenly stop agreeing to go out with you. Instead, they keep up online by sending the occasional text or photo. That’s it.
Benching is when someone maintains an internet relationship to string someone along while they play the field. The idea is typically to keep you around as a second option.
How Is Slang Popularized
If you ever feel as if new words and phrases come out of nowhere, you’re not alone. It can be challenging to keep up with these at all, let alone know what they mean or use them properly. How do words like rizz become mainstream anyway? The answer is complicated.
Some terms originate in online content such as videos or blogs. For example, the term rizz is a mashup of the words romantic and charisma. It was coined by Kai Cenat who used it with friends creating content for the social media sites twitch and YouTube.
Meme culture also influences the slang we use. Words like doggo and pupper began in memes. Sometimes a term will be used in an article then reused over and over.
It’s also important to understand that slang often comes from other cultures. Sadly, there are words and phrases that are mocked or ridiculed initially as being inappropriate or beneath people to use in the mainstream. Later, those same terms are often appropriated by the majority with no acknowledgement of their origins. This happens frequently with terms that originated in African American vernacular.
It’s okay to learn and expand your vocabulary. Just be respectful of every culture and acknowledge their language contributions. Wouldn’t you want your culture treated the same way?
Is Knowing Gen Z Slang Useful?
This is ultimately up to you to decide. With how many terms are coined with each passing year by the newer generations, Gen Z has created a lot of modern dating terms that even the Urban Dictionary website can have difficulty keeping up with. Ultimately most slang sounds familiar and has gained popularity in dating apps due to how easy it can be for you to figure them out. We hope that this helps you soft launch your initial phase of utilizing Gen Z dating lingo and that you can give your potential partner the rizz that is the love language of Gen Z dating terms.
Shelly Standford
