What Is Roaching? New Sneaky Dating Trend May Ruin Casual Relationships

With the use of smartphones and social media, couples have experienced issues such as "ghosting" and "phubbing." However, now there’s a new trend that can ruin a relationship called "roaching."

The act of roaching typically happens early in the dating portion of a monogamous relationship, lifestyle website AskMen reported. Roaching is essentially when a person keeps their options open then downplays the behavior when confronted. They will hide crushes, flings and even previous partners from their significant other. The trend seems to be popular with couples who found each other through online dating apps such as Tinder or Bumble, according to the site.

"Roaching is the name we're giving to this dating trend — because, as the adage goes, when you see one cockroach, there are many more you don't see. In this case, you may have seen just this person, but their hurtful behavior was hiding a number of other confidants, crushes, dates, flirtations, hookups and maybe even relationships from you. And like cockroaches, the behavior's very common, and kind of nasty," the website read.

The culprit will lie about the situation when confronted and suggest that their significant other should have set boundaries from the beginning.

The "roacher" may try blame the victim and use phrases like, "If you wanted us to be exclusive you should have said so" or "I had no idea — we met on Tinder, I assumed it was casual" or "you could have been seeing people this whole time too, for all I know," according to AskMen.

The term "roaching" derives from the idea that if you see one roach, it is likely that there are more that are hidden, which is akin to the lovers that the person is hiding.

The trick to avoiding this trend is communication and honesty. Partners in a relationship should let their significant others know what their intentions and expectations are from the beginning.