Beige Flags, Attachment Styles & #Delulu: Is TikTok Sabotaging Our Dating Lives?
Anna, 30, was updating a friend on her love life: “I told her I’d met this lovely guy, she recalls, “but we were moving at different paces, so I didn’t know where it was going.” Without missing a beat, her friend jumped in, “Oh, so you have an avoidant attachment style then?”
It was a presumptuous response that left Anna feeling uncomfortable. Not only because she felt the analysis of her attachment style was incorrect, but because it was totally unsolicited.
Nowadays, it can be hard to avoid this kind of pseudo-intellectualising of our romantic experiences. Videos on everything from attachment styles and situationships to breadcrumbing rack up millions of views on TikTok, while relationship therapists-turned-influencers abound (a counsellor known as @therapyjeff has over 1 million followers on Instagram), normalising thinking about the way we date from a psychological perspective. In a 2023 Match survey, 23% of Gen Z respondents said they turn to social media content creators for relationship advice.
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In recent years, an entirely new vocabulary defining our romantic experiences has flourished on social media. Neologisms – from gaslighting (a form of manipulation designed to make the victim doubt their own thoughts and feelings), breadcrumbing (leading someone on by giving them inconsistent attention) and ghosting (suddenly cutting off communication) – and psychological ideas such as attachment styles or love languages are common parlance in dating.
This is partly because the way we date has fundamentally changed, with the introduction of ‘the apps’. But much of the new vocabulary simply offers a label for behaviours that have been around for a long time. You only have to read Pride And Prejudice to know that people were leading each other on long before the Instagram algorithm. But is this increased focus on romantic literacy getting us anywhere?
It certainly has some benefits, particularly when it comes to offering a sense of community. “If we’ve been treated badly, it might feel softer to say ‘I’ve been ghosted,’ instead of saying, ‘someone’s treated me badly,’” says relationship counsellor Georgina Sturmer. “There’s this sense of being part of a group.”
Sophie, 25, agrees that widening her dating vocabulary has helped her to process difficult romantic experiences. When a short but intense relationship ended, she came across the phrase ‘love-bombing’ on TikTok (attempts to win over a love interest with excessive flattery or OTT gestures) and instantly recognised the behaviour. “I tend to overthink my relationships,” she says. “But if I can label something as love-bombing, it gives me an answer so that I can stop worrying.”
Labelling behaviours can sometimes be useful where someone is the victim of abuse, according to Sturmer. “In these situations, it can be very hard to see what’s going on and people can blame themselves. But seeing these discussions on social media might help people realise that someone else’s behaviour is the problem.”
However, having so many ideas about dating at our fingertips can lead to self-sabotage, too. For example, the current #Delulu trend on TikTok, where people poke fun at themselves for attempting to justify the actions of the people they are dating. “He does like you! Quality time just isn’t his love language,” says one TikTok user in a video tagged #Delulu. “Me when a guy lovebombs me, because I’m Delulu and genuinely believe he can fall in love with me after one date,” shares another.
These videos are supposed to be light-hearted, but they show just how easy it is to trivialise potentially complex emotional situations. For Sturmer, the risk is when people get too fixated on “intellectualising” when what we need to do is “connect to the feeling that we’re experiencing”. After all, it’s well and good to understand why something has happened, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve processed it emotionally.
Sophie adds that although learning about certain psychological ideas on social media has helped her, others have left her feeling worse – particularly without the help of a professional to help work through how they relate to her. “I started learning about attachment styles on TikTok and realised mine might be ‘anxious’. But that only makes me overthink and wonder if I’m being too anxious and clingy in relationships, which tends to make things worse,” she says.
Anna’s been left feeling similarly confused by adopting online ‘therapy speak’. “I’ve [described to friends how] my ex was gaslighting me towards the end of our relationship, but I don’t believe he was being intentionally manipulative, and he’d be horrified if he heard me describe his behaviour like that,” she says. “It feels like such a big, scary word to use for something that wasn’t intentional.”
It’s true that terms such as ‘gaslighting’ and ‘ghosting’ have become loaded, particularly because they can refer to behaviours that vary in severity. Gaslighting can be a form of emotional abuse, according to domestic abuse charity Refuge, but it’s also a word that is often thrown around casually (a recent TikTok trend saw users ‘gaslighting’ their boyfriends into thinking they were short). “For me, it now feels easier to say, ‘When you dismissed how I was feeling, that felt really crappy,’ rather than saying ‘You gaslit me,’’’ Anna says.
Whether it’s identifying your attachment styles or categorising your partner’s actions, it’s so easy to get swept up in analysing your relationship that you forget to actually experience it. Sturmer recommends always coming back to connecting with your emotions, whether with the help a professional, or by talking to someone you trust. “Labels can be harmful when they become something that people are hiding behind,” Sturmer says. “When we’re working through this stuff in therapy, it’s much more than the theory – it’s really about the feelings.”
Alice Porter is a freelance journalist based in London, covering digital culture, sex and relationships and health and wellness. She has written for publications including Dazed, VICE and Refinery29
