Submarining: if Ghosting and Orbiting Had a Child
What is submarining in dating?
Submarining is the complete opposite of mindful dating. With submarining, the person dates you for a while and then suddenly disappears from the face of Earth (goes off the radar) without warning. A few months go by, and then they suddenly emerge back in your life, pretty much like a submarine going up to the level line next to you while you’re yachting and minding your own business, having completely forgotten about the submarining person.
This is a very low-class behavior because this typically happens out of nowhere, with little to no excuses for previous disappearance, and disrupts the peace of the person who’s already moved on from the submariner.
Why do people do submarining?
There are options here. Unfortunately, there are no nation-wide questionnaires, but we can define a few reasons why your seemingly perfect match from the past may indulge in this activity:
- They’re bored. Once their life was busy and active, but now that things have died down a bit, they’re looking for ways to entertain their free time, and one way of doing it is by going through their dating chats and picking up the conversations again.
- They see you happy with someone else and they feel the urge to ruin it for you. Sounds crazy, but many people are wicked like that. It’s absolutely possible that your ex is stalking you online and hates to see you happy with someone else or just by yourself.
- Their other options fell off. Another reason why submariners come back from the bottom of the ocean is that they’ve been seeing someone else and it didn’t work out. You were their spare option, and now that the primary dating candidate is gone, they’re moving on to you. Harsh, we know, but very real.
- They’re insecure and want external validation. It’s not so much about wanting to be with you, but rather wanting to be liked and adored by someone else.
Submarining vs ghosting
Submarining and ghosting are two very similar concepts. And pink flags, if not red ones. With ghosting, your lover also disappears and goes AWOL without any heads-up or explanation. Yet, unlike with submarining, the ghoster has the decency to stay gone. Submariner, in turn, doesn’t feel bad about coming back to other people’s lives, and acting like it’s totally normal, and, in fact, they can even gaslight you saying that they thought you were doing the slow dating or something like that, so it’s no big deal.
Zombieing vs submarining
Zombieing is when someone ghosts you, but then reappears back in your life. So how is it different from submarining? It’s debatable, but many people say that ghosting can be subtle. For example, a like on Facebook here, a reaction to the Instagram Reel there. Submariners go full throttle once they decide to come back. They can start asking you out on dates, calling you, and trying to rekindle your romance fully. Also, zombieing is often a longer-term phenomenon. Such as your high school boyfriend sliding into your DMs a decade later.
How to deal with submarining in dating
Honestly, unless you are deeply, unbearably, and impossibly in love with the submariner, or especially so if you are, we’d recommend blocking them everywhere and going full no-contact. Unless they have a solid reason to disrespect you like that (and no, their being busy with work absolutely doesn’t count), they don’t deserve to be in your life.
If you are more forgiving though, you can resume communication, but we’d highly encourage you to set some ground rules. Talk about your relationship boundaries and what the repercussions are for disrespecting them. If you want to build a healthy relationship with that person, they absolutely cannot treat you like they did in the past.
Lastly, remember that humans are creatures of habit. If they’ve ghosted you once, they are very likely to do it again. The disrespect may come in a different form, but it will be there, no doubt about that. So really think about whether or not you want this type of person in your life. Maybe they’d make a great casual hookup, but not something more.
