A new dating trend wants you to stick it out in a dead relationship until your feelings curdle. Don’t talk about it. Don’t ask for change. Just hang around until their existence makes your skin itch.
It’s called “Date Them ’Til You Hate Them,” and the logic is bleak. TikTok creator Meg Neil coined the phrase after sharing how she escaped a four-year relationship by emotionally checking out and waiting for the resentment to pile up. “You’re going to let them disrespect you,” she said. “Until you no longer want to associate with them anymore.”
Some people say it’s a coping mechanism, others say it’s just what happens when you’ve given up. You go silent, pull back, and start lamenting every little annoying or rude thing they do. The longer you stay, the harder it is to remember why you ever wanted to be there in the first place.
The comments were full of praise. “Best way to leave,” one user wrote. “You already processed it all.” Others admitted they were doing it right now, letting the relationship rot on the vine so they wouldn’t feel guilty when it ended.
But what are we doing here? If the only way you can leave someone is by learning to hate them, you’re not breaking up. You’re waiting for your body to do it for you. Why get to a point of total disgust within yourself?
“Date Them ‘Til You Hate Them” Is the Newest Toxic Way to End a Relationship
Amber Hutton, another creator who weighed in on the trend, described it as a kind of personal breaking point. “You have to get to a point where you’ve had enough,” she said. “That’s when you walk away.” It sounds reasonable at first, until you realize that threshold might not come until long after the relationship stopped being worth your time.
Experts aren’t impressed. Dr. Tara Suwinyattichaiporn told PureWow the whole thing is “classic neglect.” Not just of your partner, but of yourself. What feels like control is really just avoidance in slow-mo.
There’s nothing empowering about letting your relationship die in a puddle of unspoken tension. You don’t grow from that. You get stuck. You teach yourself that the only way out is through bitterness, which isn’t exactly the kind of emotional maturity we should be glamorizing.
You don’t need to hate someone to leave them. You can leave because you’re just not into them. Or lonely. Or because he treats you like s**t. Whatever the reason, at least say it out loud. Letting things rot might make it easier to walk away, but it also means you spent months living with mold.
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