Ghosting, orbiting and pocketing are on the rise with Gen Z and millennial daters.

Ghosting – when someone cuts off all communication without any explanation – is now a popular mode of ending relationships amongst Irish singletons.

Some 70% of Gen Z and Millennials admit to having ghosted a potential partner and on Newstalk Breakfast, reporter Sarah Madden went to find out why.

One young man told Sarah: “We went on a date and the date went well, and then she never replied again."

"It was quite sad,” he said. “I thought we had a great connection”. 

Another young woman said there is “just something so mortifying about the idea that someone sees your message and then never responds to you.”

Not everyone agrees, however, and one man told Sarah that ghosting is sometimes the best option.

“Don’t give me a reason because I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “I don’t want to worry about that reason. Ghost me, block me, that’s fine. 

“I’ll only be upset if I paid for everything.”

‘Pocketing and orbiting’

Intro Matchmaking CEO and host of the ‘Is this why you’re single?’ podcast Feargal Harrington said more people are turning to matchmaking, having grown tired of the “transient experience” of online dating. 

“People become dismissive of other people for the smallest of reasons,” he said.

“We had one woman who said no to a guy because he didn’t have blond hair. He had auburn hair, and she only wants blonde babies."

"She herself didn’t have blonde hair.”

He said pocketing – when the person you're dating doesn’t introduce you to their family and friends – is another part of the “soul-destroying” dating lives of young people in Ireland.

“That person is left thinking, ‘Are you ashamed of me? Are you hiding me?’” he said.

Harrington said orbiting – which is when a partner has ended a relationship with an individual, but still keeps them in their orbit by engaging with them on social media – is also common amongst Irish daters.

“People then turn off from wanting to date at all and that’s pretty depressing and startling,” he said.

“Ireland has about two million single people. They’re ridiculously startling numbers for a population of five million people.”

‘She was looking up RIP.ie’

Dr Clodagh Campbell, psychologist and podcaster, told Newstalk Breakfast that she recently spoke to a woman who “had been on a weekend away with a partner and he ghosted her.”

“She was looking up RIP.ie, she was wondering what had happened,” she said.

“People can feel really rejected, really abandoned. People can really struggle to trust after being ghosted."

Campbell said that ghosting also exists outside of dating, as the Irish salon industry said they can lose more than €500,000 a day in revenue from people not showing up to their hair appointments.

“It’s going to be difficult to ring up the hairdresser and cancel last minute.

“We just aren’t taught these skills in life; we’re not taught in school how to have difficult conversations. We’re not taught how to have emotionally intimate conversations.”

You can listen back to Sarah’s full report here.