Have you heard of orbiting? It’s a weird AF new dating trend that could actually make you long for the days when you got ghosted.

Hey guys — Tracy here, and I. Just. Can’t.

I just can’t with these ugh-worthy dating trends, and I’ll bet you’re fed up with them too. Luckily, my thirst for knowledge and reliable internet connection have provided me with some major deets on this new trend and how you — and I — can avoid getting orbited.

What is Orbiting?

To understand orbiting, we must first review what constitutes this trend’s predecessor, ghosting. Ghosting is a dating trend that involves ceasing all communication with a person you have been dating without any type of warning or explanation. It’s something that happens to pretty much all of us at some point, but the prevalence of the trend doesn’t make it any less hurtful or confusing.

Orbiting takes ghosting one (super creepy) step further. With orbiting, a person will ghost you but remain a presence in your digital life by basically stalking you on social media.

Anna Lovine of Man Repeller is the first one to coin the term orbiting and wrote that she came up with the expression after a bad experience with a man she had been ghosted by. She had deleted the man from all her social media platforms after he seemingly fell off the face of the earth. BUT, this man continued to view all of her Instagram stories.

Her friends shared their own stories of orbiting, which included getting ghosted by people they had been seeing and being subsequently confounded by said ghosters liking, favoriting and even commenting on photos and status updates on their respective Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook accounts.

I, myself, have experienced orbiting. When someone starts orbiting you, it can feel like you just got handed a one-way ticket to crazy town. I didn’t understand why this person who clearly didn’t have an interest in continuing to date me would take the time to basically stalk all my social media accounts and even attempt to engage with me in the comments sections.

So you know what I did?

I called the guy out.

This man, let’s call him Darren (because I’ve never gone out with or met a guy with that name), took me out a couple times. We had what seemed like a great time and he promised to follow up with me and schedule another date.

And then…

NOTHING.

Zilch. Nada. I didn’t hear a single peep from him. He didn’t respond to a follow-up text from me so I assumed I wouldn’t hear from him again. But I continued to see him pop up all over my social media, liking my photos (some from like five years ago), and commenting on my status updates.

I decided to call him instead of texting. I left a message telling him I was confused over his behavior and would appreciate some closure, considering that he clearly had time to chronically like all my photos, but couldn’t let me know why he had ghosted me.

SPOILER ALERT: He never called me back…but he DID like yet another Facebook status.

I finally ended up blocking him from my social media and my phone so he couldn’t access the accounts anymore and so that I wouldn’t continue to feel confounded by his behavior.

Nowadays, things like this don’t really bother me, but that came after a lot of trial-and-error and personal growth.

When you’re really interested and attracted to someone, it can be natural to try and rationalize away obvious red flags and hang onto a false hope that MAYBE you two will end up hanging out again.

But here’s the thing about red flags…

YOU SHOULD NEVER IGNORE RED FLAGS!

People may have a laundry list of reasons to explain why they ghosted someone or made it worse by orbiting. But these reasons don’t make treating someone this way excusable. The best thing to do if you ever find yourself in this situation is to simply cut your losses and block the person from your phone and social media platforms so you won’t be bothered by their odd behavior anymore.

My first date ever was over a decade ago, and since then I’ve experienced PLENTY of highs and lows when it comes to dating. I’ve gotten my heart broken, gotten ghosted, had on-again-off-again relationships, and even gone through exhausting periods that left me wanting to swear off dating for good.

Along with developing a positive relationship with myself first and foremost, a few rules I currently live by when it comes to dating have helped me gain confidence and not sweat the small stuff:

• There is no such thing as someone being “too busy” to ever respond to your call or go on a date with you if they are truly interested
• You never deserve to be put on the back burner by someone you are in a relationship with
• If you find yourself having more bad times than good with someone you’re dating or in a relationship with, that’s not OK or something you should settle for

Speaking of settling, even when I REALLY like someone, I always know that there are plenty of fish in the sea. If someone isn’t treating me right or the relationship becomes unhealthy, I no longer worry that I won’t find anyone else once the relationship ends.

So the next time you find yourself being orbited, kick them out of your stratosphere with that lovely BLOCK button. You’re the star of your own universe, so don’t get stuck with an energy-sucking black hole.