Let’s put ourselves in context. Our partner has left us. How bad everything (or how good, depending on how you look at it…). We try to turn the page by following the tips to overcome a breakup that we talk about here, but it is not easy at all if every time we post a photo with our friends on Instagram, our ex-partner likes it. We uploaded a story of a sunset and boom, seen and I like it. Of course, responding to DMs or whatsapps is not carried
it’s so bad to do ghosting and ignoring someone completely as if you had suddenly ceased to exist, like trying to keep them on the hook by making them orbitingan increasingly common behavior in times of heartbreak.
What is orbiting (and why does it do more damage than ghosting)
The term orbiting comes from the English word “orbit”, to orbit in Spanish. And it is the best definition of what it means because whoever does it to you orbits around you. It had disappeared from your life, but it appears and disappears like the sun, leaving little crumbs like likes and views on your social networks. Of course, if you send a DM it will leave you in seen as if it were ghosting you. It is the step beyond ghosting: they stop responding to messages but constantly check your Instagram stories.
Anna Iovine was the person who coined the expression (that Oxford shortlisted as its Word of the Year) and explained that who makes you orbiting it keeps you close enough that you can both watch each other, but far enough away that you never have to talk.
We could say that it is a way of staying inside and outside, of being present without being present, what has always been known as “the dog in the manger, who neither eats nor lets eat.” The fact that that person is always present in your social networks makes forgetting and making your life difficult, as well as creating confusion in you because the orbiting person in turn ignores any attempt at significant contact.
This type of behavior does not benefit any of the members of the couple because with a contact of this type turning the page becomes impossible. Those people who do orbiting do not follow the example of how to break well and besides trying to hold open a door that never seems to close so the solution if you suffer from orbiting is clear: blocking. If that intermittent contact hurts you, blocking that person on social networks is the solution.
Photos | Story of a marriage (Netflix)
In Jared | The best romantic and love movies to watch as a couple (and where to find them all)