Zombieing
Returning to someone you left abruptly and acting like you mutually ended it
Example
Steve was zombieing Carol and she was having none of it
Good for her. She deserves a committed, loving guy
Zombieing can be a very scary experience
Related Slang
| Ghosting | Leaving without saying goodbye |
| Haunting | Following a romantic partner on social media after abruptly leaving them |
| Orbiting | Following someone on social media without direct interaction |
| Irish goodbye | Leaving without saying goodbye |
| Dutch leave | Leaving without saying goodbye |
| French exit | Leaving without saying goodbye |
| Benching | Using a person as a backup date |
| Breadcrumbing | Leading someone on romantically |
| Submarining | Dating a person, disappearing, then reappearing |
| Stashing | Dating a person but unwilling to publicly acknowledge it |
| Roaching | Secretly dating many romantic partners at the same time |
| Caspering | Ending a relationship in a friendly, but confusing way |
| Love bomber | A person who uses excessive acts to secure a relationship |
Are you financially literate?
Zombieing is when a person returns to a romantic partner they ghosted, but acts like they ended the relationship mutually. The term comes from the behavior of zombies, where they come back from the dead to creep closer to you.
The term's origins date back to the mid-2010s as an extension of the ghosting term that became prominent in 2014. The creator is unclear, but the term became widely used in the late-2010s, along with the "haunting" term.
Zombieing is a form of gaslighting where the ghoster attempts to manipulate the ghosted individual. They re-insert them into the victim's life after disappearing then attempt to act like nothing ever happened.
There are various possibilities for why someone zombies another person. Some include wanting to explore other "fish in the sea," work took over their life, they had a serious life event that required their attention, or they are just incredibly aloof.
Zombieing should be a red flag for any victim, and they should proceed with extreme caution when re-entering a relationship with the perpetrator. The zombie is, at best, very unreliable, and at worst, a manipulator that cannot be trusted.