“She never responds to my messages, but texts me ‘u up’ at 1 a.m.? What’s the deal?” “Sounds like you’re getting firedoored, bud.”
FRECKLING
If someone only seems interested in you during the warmer months, it might be a case of freckling. Maybe they got out of a relationship of sorts during the spring and now that its summertime, youre on their hookup roster. Unfortunately, theyre not looking for anything serious or permanent – just like freckles, theyll disappear come fall.
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
Friends with benefits is the relatively classy way of saying you know someone and care about them and are regularly engaging in sexual acts with them, but not within the context of a relationship. It implies a certain looseness of arrangement. You probably don’t see each other as often as a real couple; don’t tell each other all the details of your lives; don’t put each other down on emergency contact forms (or mention each other on social media profiles). That doesn’t mean you’re cold, unfeeling robots; it just means a relationship isn’t exactly what you want.
F*CKBUDDIES
Isn’t that. basically friends with benefits? Yes, arguably, they’re pretty similar. At the same time, though, the use of the F-word in one of the terms (compared to the very euphemistic “benefits” denotes a very different sexual ethos. One is classy, old world, and stuffy; the other is crass, lewd and very present. So fuckbookhookup, arguably, one is for the type of people who are ashamed of such a sexual arrangement, and one is for people who aren’t. Or maybe how you describe your setup depends more on who’s asking. Whatever works!
“I met this great girl. We’ve been seeing each other a lot. just for sex, though, no dates. We’re f*ckbuddies.”
This term is one of the more flexible on the list, but, generally speaking, someone who identifies as gay is exclusively attracted to, or exclusively dates, or exclusively has sex with, people who are the same gender as themselves – but it’s a term that’s been reclaimed by many across the spectrum of sexuality – so if you see a queer woman proclaim she’s gay despite dating men too, it’s not necessarily the contradiction you think it is.
“Carol, would you like to grab coffee with me this weekend?” “Sure, Jim, but as friends. You do know I’m gay, right?”
GENDERFLUID
Can be applied to people who feel outside the gender binary, or it can be applied to persons who feel that their gender isn’t fixed, but variable – changing from day to day. Unlike nonbinary persons, a genderfluid person might identify as male and female, on different days, whereas a nonbinary person will usually identify as neither male nor female. Someone’s gender identity has nothing to do with whom they’re attracted to, or what they look like on the outside, or what physical sex they were born as. Gender is a mental conception of the self, so a genderfluid person can present as any gender or appearance, based on how that term feels for them.
“Hey, could you ask Scout if I could have her number? I need to ask her about this chem assignment.” “Hey, buddy, I’ll definitely ask for you, but you should know that Scout’s not a ‘she’- they’re genderfluid.”
GHOSTING
Ghosting is when you disappear out of someone’s life because you’re no longer interested in them, instead of telling them directly. It’s more abrupt than breadcrumbing: the ghoster will suddenly stop replying to texts and won’t answer calls, and the ghostee is usually left hurt and confused.