Philip believes orbiting takes on extra nuance in the gay male community. So why do people orbit? What’s the impetus for this half-assed pseudo form of ghosting? Theory #1: It’s a Power Move
“Guys seem to do it when they want to keep their options open, which is a common theme with online dating.” Philip Ellis, a writer who lives in the U.K., has been “orbited” as well: “I’m super familiar with orbiting,” Philip told me in an email. “Orbiting is the perfect word for this experience,” she wrote, “because right now I’m so annoyed I wish I could launch him straight into space.”Īs it turns out, this frustration isn’t limited to women. Vanessa admits there’s been written correspondence - a tweet reply here, a “haha” comment there - but largely, this man is in her orbit, seemingly keeping tabs on her with with no intention of engaging her in meaningful conversation or, you know, dating her. And he’ll favorite and respond to my tweets too,” she wrote.
“He even responds to pictures that I’ll post of my family. (Instagram has never released why some people continually show up at the top of story views, but some Redditors have sniffed out that it could be indicative of those who lurk your profile the most, which would make Vanessa’s observation even more vexing. She was fine with that, except for one small detail: “He still looks at every single Instagram stories to the point where he shows up at the top of the list every time.” My friend Vanessa* recently opened up about a similar experience in an email with the subject line: “SO LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS DUDE.” She described going on a few “lovely dates” with a guy before he told her he wasn’t interested. I dubbed it “orbiting” during a conversation with my colleague Kara, when she poetically described this phenomenon as a former suitor “keeping you in their orbit” - close enough to see each other far enough to never talk. The more I described Tyler’s behavior to friends, the more I realized how prevalent this kind of thing was. It’s now been over two months since we’ve spoken, and Tyler not only still follows me on Instagram, he looks at every single one of my stories. On Facebook and Snapchat, that meant we could no longer see each other’s content, but on Instagram, no such luck. I soon gathered it was over, but in the ensuing days, I noticed he was watching every single one of my Instagram and Snapchat stories - and was often one of the first people to do so.Ī couple of weeks later, after still no correspondence, I decided to unfollow/unfriend Tyler from all three social platforms. After our second date, he stopped answering my texts. We met on Tinder, naturally, and after our first date, we added each other on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. I started dating a man - let’s call him Tyler - a few months ago. I, however, am in the midst of a dating phenomenon that could only occur in the age of social media.
JSTOR ( August 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. In 2000, he appeared as a rapper called Opmaestro, though he later changed his stage name to "Stromae", which is " Maestro" with the syllables reversed following the French slang practice, verlan. Īt the age of 18, he founded a rap group called "Suspicion", along with rapper "J.E.D.I." in Eichhof. They produced the song and music video "Faut que t'arrête le Rap." before J.E.D.I.