On social media, private conversations can end while public updates continue. Stories and posts keep someone’s daily life accessible long after direct communication has stopped. This gap between absence from a relationship and presence on a screen is one of the dynamics the vocabulary of modern dating gives a name to.

Ghosting means abruptly and unilaterally cutting off communication without explanation: one person stops responding to the other’s messages and calls. Merriam-Webster added this meaning of the verb “to ghost” in 2017.

Withdrawing from someone is hardly a social media invention. In the past, seeing that person again might have depended on a chance encounter or mutual acquaintances. Today, unless someone blocks the other person or restricts what they can see, they can remain visible to the person they have stopped communicating with. Disappearing from a romantic connection does not necessarily mean leaving the digital stage: it is possible to remain a spectator of someone’s life when direct contact is no longer possible.

Ghosting even entered legislative debate in 2022, when Philippine lawmaker Arnolfo Teves Jr. introduced a bill seeking to declare it an “emotional offense,” citing the distress of being left without an explanation or closure. The bill did not become law, but it brought before lawmakers a question that runs through these experiences: the consequences of a relationship ending without being declared over.

Disappearance is not the only thing that leaves a connection in limbo. Even while a relationship is unfolding, its meaning can remain undefined. On social media, these connections have long found a home under the hashtag #situationships. A collective account of private uncertainty: people meet, have sex, share routines and confidences without agreeing on commitment, exclusivity or a future. The intimacy exists; what it means remains to be negotiated.

A blend of “situation” and “relationship,” the word was popularized in 2017 by journalist Carina Hsieh in Cosmopolitan: “a hookup with emotional benefits,” combining a sexual connection with emotional involvement. Listed by Merriam-Webster and Cambridge, it made Oxford’s Word of the Year shortlist in 2023.

A relationship without a label can be consensual even when expectations differ. For one person, the arrangement works; for the other, it means waiting for something more. If that difference goes unspoken, the connection can remain in limbo.

With orbiting, attention on social media continues in the absence of direct communication: like a satellite staying in orbit without landing. Journalist Anna Iovine coined the term in Man Repeller in April 2018, describing a man who had stopped replying to her messages but kept watching her stories. His name on the viewer list made that attention visible, even though they were no longer talking. “Why did they disappear?” can become “Why are they still here?” Curiosity, habit, a desire to leave the door open: that trace alone cannot reveal the motive.

Watching a story or leaving a like takes little effort, but it can raise expectations that the gesture itself cannot clarify. On Instagram, a story like is visible only to the person who posted the story. They may interpret it as a sign of interest, while the person who left it considers it “just a like.” A like on a post, by contrast, can also be seen by other users with access to it, giving the gesture a public dimension. Instagram’s Close Friends list reserves content for a selected circle: being included can feel like a step toward intimacy, even if the person managing the list does not intend it that way. On TikTok, meanwhile, reposting a video associates a user’s name with someone else’s content. Private signals, public expressions of appreciation and selective access form a kind of digital proxemics - a language of distance and familiarity. They can sustain an exchange without clarifying its nature: how much of that language is actually shared?

The difficulty of interpreting online behavior is also a subject of relationship research. A 2026 study published in BMC Psychology and indexed in PubMed developed a scale to measure “digital boundary ambiguity,” or uncertainty about a couple’s digital boundaries. The study involved 673 adults ages 18 to 65, all in romantic relationships and active on social media. The scale assesses how clear those boundaries are and how often misunderstandings arise: even within a relationship, the meaning of online gestures may need to be agreed upon.

Ambiguity in relationships predates social media, but platforms can prolong it through low-effort micro-interactions. In modern dating, the vocabulary of uncertainty keeps expanding without establishing a shared code of romantic ethics. Even amid the apparent omniscience of the digital world, contact can continue while the question of what it means may remain unanswered.