As young people take on a messy dating landscape, they’ve created their own lexicon to match. Here’s like what phrases ‘bird theory’ and ‘monkey branching’ mean
T
his year marked a decade since the term “ghosting” hit the mainstream. At the time, the idea that someone could abruptly cease communication with a lover without explanation seemed like the peak of indignity. How naive we were. In the 10 years since, finding a partner has only become more confounding – an oftentimes fruitless exercise in humiliation that is increasingly pigeonholed by social media jargon.
Gen Z, a cohort who came of age during a loneliness epidemic, a masculinity crisis, and a coordinated attack on the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community, faces a far messier landscape than their millennial predecessors could ever imagine. And so their dating glossary has grown longer and more deranged, with phrases like “Shrekking” and “monkey branching” testing the limits of your sanity.
What follows is a comprehensive guide to the terms gen Z is using to talk about romance, sex and the pursuit of both. To paraphrase one of the year’s most enduring memes, by the end of this glossary you’ll yearn to get back to God’s country – because wherever that is, it doesn’t have “wokefishing”.
