FIELD NOTES · RESEARCH

Ghosting and situationships: what the research says about modern dating’s grey areas

Psychologists have spent a decade studying the silent exit, the trail of breadcrumbs and the relationship with no name. What they have found is more nuanced, and more humane, than the memes.

By The On Dating Journal Editors Published 14 October 2026Updated 19 October 202612 min read

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In a pair of experiments in Italy, young volunteers chatted every day on Telegram with a study partner for about 15 minutes. On day four the partner did one of three things: carried on as normal, ended things explicitly, or simply stopped replying. Both rejection and silence hurt at once. But over the following days the rejected participants began to recover, while the ghosted ones stayed stuck, still confused and increasingly keen to be left alone, as PsyPost reported of the study by Alessia Telari, Luca Pancani and Paolo Riva in Computers in Human Behavior.

That finding, a small one from a laboratory setting, captures what a decade of research on ghosting and situationships keeps circling back to. It is not usually the ending that does the damage. It is the not knowing. Here is what the peer-reviewed evidence says about modern dating’s grey areas, how often they happen, and where the evidence runs out.

How common is ghosting? What the prevalence studies show

The vocabulary has spread faster than the behaviour can be measured. In October 2019, Pew Research Center asked 4,860 American adults which dating terms they had heard of: 62 per cent knew “ghosting”, but only 9 per cent had heard of “breadcrumbing”.

Measured experience varies enormously with who is asked and how. A YouGov poll for the Huffington Post in October 2014, among 1,000 American adults of all ages and relationship statuses, found 13 per cent had been ghosted by someone they were dating and 11 per cent had ghosted someone.

Academic samples of younger adults produce much higher numbers. A 2022 paper by Pancani, Nicolas Aureli and Riva in the journal Cyberpsychology summarises the earlier work: in a US study of 554 people by Gili Freedman and colleagues, 25.3 per cent had been ghosted and 21.7 per cent had ghosted someone. Across three US samples studied by Darcey Powell and colleagues, between 28.5 and 47 per cent had been ghosted.

Among dating app users specifically, the figures climb again. In a study of 328 mobile daters by Elisabeth Timmermans, Anne-Mette Hermans and Suzanna Opree, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships in 2021, 85 per cent said they had been ghosted and more than half had ghosted others. That sample was recruited rather than representative, but it suggests ghosting is close to universal among people who date through apps.

Ghosting statistics from Europe

A study of 626 Spanish adults aged 18 to 40 by Raúl Navarro, Elisa Larrañaga, Santiago Yubero and Beatriz Víllora, published in Escritos de Psicología in 2020, asked about the previous 12 months. In that year, 19.3 per cent had been ghosted and 23.2 per cent had ghosted someone. People who used dating apps, had more short-term relationships or monitored partners online were more likely to be involved, on either side.

Breadcrumbing, orbiting and benching: the vocabulary of mixed signals

Ghosting at least ends something. Its cousins keep things going, just barely.

Breadcrumbing means sporadic contact, a like here, a message there, without the relationship progressing. In the Spanish study it was more common than ghosting: 35.6 per cent had been breadcrumbed in the past year and 36.7 per cent admitted doing it. A companion paper by the same team in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that being breadcrumbed was associated with lower life satisfaction and more loneliness and helplessness. Being ghosted, in that sample, was not. The authors are explicit that their cross-sectional design cannot show cause and effect.

Orbiting is ghosting with an audience: the person stops replying but keeps watching your stories. In a 2021 study of 208 young adults in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Pancani and colleagues described four stages of reaction to both experiences: surprise and confusion; anger, sadness and guilt; attempts to repair the relationship; and finally acceptance. They concluded both behaviours work as forms of ostracism.

Benching, keeping someone in reserve with just enough attention to stay interested, has plenty of magazine coverage and almost no research. We could find no peer-reviewed study measuring how common it is; the Spanish team mentions it only in passing. Treat any confident benching statistic with suspicion.

Situationships: relationships without a label

The situationship, more than a hookup and less than a relationship, is the grey area that has acquired the most social acceptance. YouGov surveyed 1,110 American adults in January 2024: 39 per cent said they had been in one, rising to 50 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds. Notably, 55 per cent of situationships began in person and only 7 per cent on dating apps, though 29 per cent of younger adults’ started on social media.

Tinder’s Year in Swipe 2022, a company report, recorded a 49 per cent rise in members adding “situationship” to their bios, and claimed young singles were embracing it as a valid status with less pressure attached.

The research is younger. A 2025 mixed-methods study in Sexuality & Culture, led by Mickey Langlais at Baylor University, interviewed ten people and surveyed 89 college students about 109 situationships, as PsyPost reported. Satisfaction and commitment were highest when people felt emotionally invested, talked about the future and felt prioritised. Many saw the arrangement as a possible route into a conventional relationship, which Langlais called “relationship purgatory”. The sample was small, mostly female and college-aged.

What daters say they want is the opposite of ambiguity. Hinge’s 2026 LGBTQIA+ D.A.T.E. report, based on more than 31,000 users and covered by Global Dating Insights, found 86 per cent of LGBTQIA+ daters said consistent communication reduced their anxiety. It is company research, but the direction matches the academic work.

Why people ghost: convenience, self-protection and destiny

The stereotype of the callous ghoster does not survive much contact with the data.

Leah LeFebvre and colleagues, writing in Imagination, Cognition and Personality in 2019, identified five broad reasons, as summarised by psychologist Martin Graff: convenience, the pull of other options, a negative interaction, the nature of the relationship, and safety. That last one matters. Sometimes silence is the safest exit available.

The Timmermans study asked 142 ghosters for their motives. Most (67 per cent) blamed the other person, 44 per cent cited reasons of their own such as self-protection, 29 per cent pointed to the ease and abundance of the apps, and 16 per cent said they were trying to spare the other person’s feelings. The authors concluded ghosting was “not necessarily done with harmful or conscious intent”.

Personality and belief play a part. Freedman and colleagues found people who believe relationships are either “meant to be” or not were more likely to see ghosting as acceptable and to have done it. A two-wave panel study of 978 young adults in Telematics and Informatics found that feeling overloaded by social media communication predicted ghosting romantic partners, according to PsyPost.

The ghoster’s side of the story

Ghosters also tend to feel worse than they get credit for. In a study published this year in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Sophia Li, Coral Zheng and Juliana Schroeder found people who had ghosted someone reported feeling worse than the person they ghosted assumed, PsyPost reported in October. The gap was biggest when the silence was unintentional. A brief reply, even “sorry, I can’t talk right now”, narrowed it. The effect did not fully replicate in a live experiment, so the finding is suggestive rather than settled.

The effects of being ghosted: what studies can and cannot show

Being ghosted is not trivial. In the Timmermans sample, sadness and hurt were the commonest reactions, and 94 people, about 44 per cent of those who answered, reported longer-term effects, chiefly lower self-esteem and distrust of others. The pain was sharper when the ghosting was unexpected, when contact had lasted longer, when the pair had met face to face and when it had happened repeatedly.

Pancani’s 2022 experiment found that, compared with people recalling a direct rejection, ghosted participants felt more excluded, sensed a greater threat to their sense of belonging and control, and judged the ending as less fair. Powell’s team found that people with higher attachment anxiety were more likely to have been ghosted, though they could not say which came first.

The limits matter as much as the findings. Most studies use small, young, convenience samples, and most are snapshots. The panel study above, one of the few to track people over time, found ghosting friends predicted later depressive tendencies among ghosters, while ghosting romantic partners did not. Being ghosted can hurt a great deal; the evidence does not show it routinely causes lasting harm.

How the apps are trying to curb ghosting

Dating companies have an obvious incentive to tackle silence, because unanswered chats do not become dates. Hinge said in May 2024 that 44 per cent of its daters named a lack of responsiveness as a top challenge, and that in 2023, matches whose first message got a reply within 24 hours were 72 per cent more likely to lead to a date. Its Your Turn Limits test stops users with eight or more people awaiting a reply from starting new conversations until they answer or end some.

Bumble’s August 2026 overhaul allows only one opening message until the match replies, extends the reply window to 72 hours and nudges people who send one-word openers. The company says Canadian testing showed fewer chat expirations and less unmatching. Meanwhile, 45 per cent of young daters in Tinder’s Year in Swipe survey, conducted by Opinium among 4,000 18 to 25-year-olds, said they wanted more empathy after rejection. For the broader context, see our report on dating app fatigue.

Coping with ghosting and mixed signals

The Timmermans study is one of the few to ask people how they coped. The commonest response was rationalising: reframing the experience as “just” a rejection. Others sought closure, tried to recontact the ghoster, adjusted their expectations of app dating, or simply moved on. A minority checked the ghoster’s social media or deleted the app.

The research points to a few modest conclusions. Uncertainty is what prolongs the hurt, so a short, clear message is kinder than silence, and the Li study suggests it often makes the sender feel better too. Situationships tend to work best when people talk about where things are going. And repeated ghosting hurts more than a single instance, which is one reason some people take breaks from the apps.

If an experience like this is weighing heavily on you, talking to someone helps. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be reached free on 116 123, at any hour, every day of the year, and your GP can point you to local support.

For the bigger picture of how dating is changing, read our dating trends 2026 report, our analysis of Gen Z dating, or compare apps that build in more accountability in our guide to the best dating apps.

Frequently asked questions

How common is ghosting?

It depends on who is asked. A 2014 YouGov poll of US adults found 13 per cent had been ghosted, while academic studies of younger adults put it at roughly 20 to 47 per cent, and a 2021 study of dating app users found 85 per cent had experienced it.

What is the difference between ghosting and breadcrumbing?

Ghosting means cutting off all contact without explanation. Breadcrumbing means keeping up occasional, low-effort contact without the relationship moving forward. In a Spanish study, breadcrumbing was the more common of the two.

What is a situationship?

A romantic connection that is neither platonic nor an agreed relationship. YouGov found 50 per cent of American 18 to 34-year-olds had been in one, and most began in person rather than on apps.

Why do people ghost?

Researchers have found a mix of convenience, a negative interaction, the abundance of other options, self-protection and occasionally safety. In one study, most ghosters blamed the other person, but many said they meant no harm.

Does being ghosted hurt more than being rejected?

Experiments suggest it can last longer. In multi-day experiments in Italy, rejected participants recovered faster than ghosted ones, largely because ghosting leaves people uncertain about what happened.