Summer flings often start on vacations and end when the other person has to go home, and tend to be of the “short and sweet” variety.
SWINGER
The de facto term for consensually sleeping with someone outside of your e, swinging has lost some cultural currency in recent years as millennials opt for the “poly” lifestyle instead. Still, swinging is alive and well for Gen Xers taking advantage of increasingly liberal sexual mores as society shifts slowly away from the restrictive confines of absolute monogamy and towards something a little bit more flexible.
SWIPING
Swiping, swiping, swiping. For some singles, it might be difficult to conceive of any other way, but it’s worth remembering that swiping didn’t even really exist before 2012. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and if so: congratulations, you lucky duck), you’ll know that swiping is the physical interaction you have with your phone (a single finger moves intentionally across a thin piece of glass covering an electronic brain) when deciding whether you’re attracted to someone’s profile picture or not. From Tinder it spread to Bumble and a few thousand copycat apps. It’ll be replaced eventually, but until then, swiping is how we as a culture perform love – or at least our aspirations thereto.
TEXTLATIONSHIP
A textlationship is a flirtatious connection between two people that works on paper but never seems to manifest itself in practice. For whatever reason, the chemistry between two people is just better over texts. It could mean one of the two is playing the other just for the attention, rather than both parties being shy or awkward. Regardless, if the passion is there in the texts but never translates to the streets or the sheets, its a textlationship.
“Shes always texting me but never wants to actually go on a date or hook up. Honestly, we might just be in a textlationship.”
THIRST TRAP
In the natural world, spiders have webs, and millennials have thirst traps. They’re intentionally sexually provocative pictures posted on social media in order to ensnare hapless scrollers-by. Often, such pictures will draw way more likes than their typical posts, as thirsty people rush to offer their likes as sacrifices to an uncaring god. These can be a great ego boost for the thirst trapper, but the chatib prijs high tends not to last. Then you’re back on the timeline, thirst trapping again for your next fix.
Etymology: Thirst is desire, sexual or romantic, that tends to be unreturned; a trap is how you catch unsuspecting victims.
THRONING
Throning is essentially another form of gold digging that extends beyond wealth. It involves someone using another person for their power and social status, and it’s most common when one person in the relationship has significantly less money or influence than their counterpart.
Etymology: When you think of a throne, you think of a crown. That person doing the throning wants that crown.
“Every time we cross that rope, we get inside and suddenly it’s like I’m not even there. I feel like I’m just being throned.”
TINDSTAGRAMMING
Tindstagramming is the process of contacting someone through Instagram’s direct messaging feature after you have seen them on Tinder but not become a match. It’s an annoying and generally poorly-received way of bypassing a left-swipe, and women in particular get fatigued by the messages that pile up in their “Other” folder when they link their Instagram account to their Tinder profile.
TRANSGENDER
At birth, (even before, if you’ve ever been to a gender reveal party), pretty much all of us are assigned a gender, whether by our doctor, our parents, or society. Transgender or trans persons are those whose actual gender is different from the one they were assigned. Some trans people undergo surgery or take hormones to have their sex characteristics better match their gender, but not everyone does! Transgender, or trans, like queer is often an umbrella for those with diverse genders.