New practices follow one another without ever being the same in the world of dating. After gophering, or even benching, comes “delulu” which tends to normalize one-way relationships. In summary, the more your partner loses interest in you, the more it is a sign of mad love. We’ll explain it to you.
Disillusionment, or rather “delulu” as American Internet users like to call it, is the new dating trend of 2023. It consists of naively clinging to a disinterested partner. Example: a possible conquest no longer responds overnight. In theory, we should move on to something else, but that was before… According to the followers of “delulu”, it could be that this potential conquest is too romantic to give any sign of life.
Delulu, the sign of blindness in love?
You will have understood, the “delulu” can be debated. But the term has still managed to conquer a good community on TikTok. Currently, the hashtag #delulugirl already has nearly 500 million views.
In the videos published, young women lulled by illusions – or ironic about such behavior – unabashedly recount their romantic setbacks. For example, one Internet user jokes by reporting that she calls her crush her boyfriend even though he is completely disinterested. In another video, a young woman romanticizes – in the first or second degree – rejection: “If he lets go of my snap, it’s because he’s too busy staring at our conversation. If he doesn’t answer my calls, it’s because he has heart palpitations.”
In this realm of fictitious relationships, IsabelUnhinged, self-proclaimed “Empress of Deluluand”, and followed by more than 300,000 subscribers on TikTok, confides in her stories as she would in a diary. For example, she films her nocturnal escapade at her partner’s house and indicates in the caption: “Me on my way to his house when he’ll probably never come see me at the hospital if I have an accident.”. A hopeless romantic, she says she burst into tears when her month-long relationship ended, “as if it were the end of a marriage”, she testifies to ID. But how can we explain this most curious trend which is gaining views on social networks?
Attraction to mystery or blindness?
According to Josh Smith, marriage and family counselor at Relate, this “delulu” behavior is cultivated by the mystery embodied in conquests. Whether it’s a “situation” (non-serious relationship) or casual dating. “We often know so little about the other that there is a lot of space left for us to project onto him (or her) our hopes, our dreams, the things we could wish for. he explains to ID.
“Delulu” would in a way be quite close to “limerence”, a sort of obsession with love at first sight or true love. According to the expert, what appeals most about the “delulu” community is the unsaid, the mystery, or even the total absence of clarity on the part of the potential partner. Something which is not without consequences, if we consider that it is never good to delude oneself… especially in love. The best thing is to clarify the situation with the principal concerned.
