Signs that someone is breadcrumbing you

A breadcrumber will neither promise you a future nor let you date another person (Photo: iStock)

Love bombing, roaching, orbiting, we’ve heard them all. These are modern dating terms that are starting to define what contemporary relationships are like and no wonder people are terrified.

Something that happens often is breadcrumbing. You might not know that it’s happened to you or that you’ve done it to someone else but basically, it’s when someone is giving you a false sense of hope.

A bread crumber will seem like they’re genuinely interested in you but in reality, it’s not going to lead to anything solid. Before you know it, you’ve been manipulated for so long into thinking you had something special going on but it was all a lie.

Modern dating can be complex but once you figure out the common games people play, you will be safe. To avoid being breadcrumbed, you should know what signs to look out for:

• They always appear and disappear

Dating someone shouldn’t feel like a Houdini show. A person with this habit will mostly feed you a couple of love breadcrumbs to keep you hooked but all that is short-lived because they go quiet again.

After disappearing for a while, you will one day see that they’ve put a heart reaction under a photo you’ve posted or you’ll get that “hey, it’s been a while” text.

If you’re not wise enough to see that they aren’t genuinely interested, you will be manipulated and taken for a ride for a long time.

They will constantly build castles in the air (Photo: iStock)

• The conversations are shallow

Take a moment to reflect on your love interest. Put the feelings aside for a minute and really dig deep to understand who they are. If you notice that you barely know anything about them after kicking it for a while, there might be something wrong.

It shows that your conversations are generally shallow and maybe they usually revolve around sex most of the time.

• They are big on fake plans

A direct way of telling whether someone is breadcrumbing you is checking how committed they are to plans. They will get you all excited about taking you out and hanging out but those plans never materialize, most of the time.

This is part of their game because you’re probably their backup plan. This emotional game is like a maintenance routine they do for when they need something from you-sex or money usually.

Being breadcrumbed will emotionally drain you (Photo: iStock)

• There is no real commitment

The core characteristic of people who do this is non-committal. It shows in their actions and it will generally describe what kind of relationship you have.

They will have sex with you, maybe take you on a date or two but you will never have any confirmation that it’s going further than that.

If the conversation on commitment comes up, they won’t tell you that they don’t see anything real directly. Instead, they will tactfully make it seem like they’re open to a real connection to ensure you stay interested.

• You feel emotionally drained

The last thing is to gauge how your emotional experience has been with this person. Someone secure will make you feel loved and you won’t feel so many conflicting feelings.

A bread crumber’s hot and cold behaviour towards you is the main reason why you’re feeling emotionally unstable, lonely and drained.