The dating scene in your mid to late twenties, not to mention your thirties, is a different monster than it was when you were young. Us sometimes jaded, traumatized, and emotionally distant millennials like to keep our dating pools vast, open, and with a whole new recipe for what we used to call “the game.”

That’s not to say we’re actually cold and unfeeling. We’ve just been a bit too socialized by the ease and detachment of social media and online dating, as well as the large number of us who’ve come from parents who have split (which isn’t always a bad thing, but it can keep us cautious). Not to mention, as you get older, everyone comes to new relationships with old baggage, some of which they might have healed from, and some that they have yet to.

Because of the hesitancy to commit to something we’re not absolutely sure of, the fear of rejection, and a sprinkle of manipulative and narcissistic tendencies, we’ve created some toxic dating patterns that have now become the norm. There isn’t just ghosting to navigate now. We’ve got a whole slew of negative patterns we have to watch out for. And they’ve all been aptly named.

Negging

Negging is the first stop on the manipulation tour. It’s one of the early signs that the person doing the negging is either toxic, narcissistic, or could become emotionally abusive. Negging is a major red flag for unhealthy patterns later on.

Negging is the act of doling out backhanded compliments or other negative feedback to the person you’re dating in order to exert emotional power or control. What negging aims to do is to keep the person being negged feeling like they need to validate themselves to the other person. If you start noticing that the person you are dating is criticizing you often, comparing you to exes, or making fun of you in a way that is not actually humorous: RUN.

Catch and Release

This classic (and in theory, humane) fishing practice is now a dating technique that is absolutely not humane. If I had one dollar for every catch and release I’ve experienced from the ages of 23-28, I would be eating caviar right now.

The catch and release starts when you meet someone that you aren’t immediately into, but continue to date. Once you do become interested based on their efforts to win you over, they start to slowly pull away. Depending on their fancy, they might ghost you altogether. Those exhibiting the catch and release tendency could have a few things going on in their headspace. This type of behavior could mean that the person needs constant validation, or that they’re fearful of codependence. It could be a subconscious reaction to having an absent parent.

The fact is, a lot of our childhood traumas follow us through teendom and adulthood. And until we sort them out, we’ll be forced to continue our patterns over and over again with the same results, which is the definition of insanity.

Zombie-ing (Formerly the Un-Ghost)

So, they’ve ghosted you. Bye-bye to any explanation as to why. Just as you’ve gotten over this unempathetic upset, they might come back with a series of likes on your Instagram posts. They might send you a Facebook message out of the blue wondering how you are. But this person is a zombie, and you should probably not.

There is some evidence for breaking up and getting back together months or even years later as a way to separate and heal, only to reconvene to have an even better relationship. Where this may work for some couples, if someone has done the dirty deed of ghosting you, they will most likely not feel bad about doing it again. They might even try this several times if you don’t hold them accountable. It’s best to leave the zombies to the horror genre, and not your contacts.

Benching and Stashing

Here are two forms of putting someone “on reserve” as you date them. Say you meet someone that you’re not entirely sure about, (see Catch and Release) so you decide to keep playing the field as you figure it out. If you’re honest with your potential partner about it, and they feel the same, by all means, have at it. Though it sounds like that conversation likely wouldn’t go down well.

The benching technique is when you have a few good dates and then the person slowly becomes more busy, though you haven’t lost contact with them altogether. Stashing is a bit more shady. Stashing is when it seems like you’re in a relationship with someone, but you have yet to meet anyone important in their lives, thus keeping you and their personal lives separate. If you’re dating a private person, then it might not be stashing. However, there is the chance that they are keeping things separate in order to explore multiple different partners.

Chances are, like benching, if they bench or stash you, they don’t want to take the risk of committing. If they don’t find you worthy of that risk, then they’re probably not worthy of your time.

It’s easy to say that we could all be kinder to each other, but that doesn’t affect real change. Kindness in any relationship is fundamentally connected to being kind to ourselves first. Before you actively start dating after a bad breakup, if you’ve had several unhealthy relationships, or are stuck in a pattern of dating toxic people, working on yourself could be the answer to obtaining a healthy relationship. Once you get to know yourself, and love yourself, it’s much easier to see what you do and don’t deserve from a potential partner.