The latest social media dating trend is downright creepy.
Whether you regularly watch a past flame's Instagram stories or like their Facebook posts from time to time, dating experts are now referring to this sort of social media snooping as "haunting." As reported by InStyle, "haunting" can occur on any social media site and it can be confusing at best and creepy at worst, especially if the relationship ended on bad terms. It might happen right after you break up, two years down the road or really any time at all.
On Monday's episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, Jenna Bush Hager explained the term and she and Hoda Kotb seemed a bit confused by the phenomenon.
"It's when a former flame pops up and they look at your social media stuff but they don't comment or reach out," Jenna said.
"So that means they 'like' it?" Hoda questioned. "They must."
The co-anchors asked their special guest, Andy Cohen, if he's heard of "haunting" and if he's ever done it before. He admitted that he does indeed haunt his exes from time to time.
"I haunt people on my Finsta (fake Instagram)," he revealed. "I have a private Instagram."
The TV host then elaborated on the sneaky, yet genius way he keeps tabs on people via social media.
"So you go to your private Instagram and then they won't (be able to) tell that you've looked because it's on an account that they don't know about," he explained.
Hoda and Jenna seemed fascinated by Cohen's trickery. It seems to work for public figures who have oodles of followers, but sounds like it could be a bit more complicated if you have a private, personal account.
"Haunting" is hardly the first dating trend to get a Halloween-friendly name. We've been talking about "ghosting," a dating phenomenon where someone you've been talking to suddenly stops responding or contacting you without a goodbye, for several years now.
In 2017, the term "zombie-ing" joined the dating conversation to represent a trend where someone you've been seeing for a while disappears then returns months later. The following year, the dating term du jour was "scrooging," a trend where you dump someone right before the holidays so you don't have to buy them a gift.
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There's a whole crop of dating terms and some of them simply represent trends that have been around for a long time. Take "stashing," for instance, which occurs when your new love doesn't introduce you to anyone they're close to because they're not interested in making anything serious.
"Breezing" is perhaps the most refreshing term, describing when a person ditches their "rules" of dating and just tells the other person exactly what they're looking for in a potential partner.
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