Your Guide To The Toxic Submarining Dating Trend

If you're someone who's still out there trying to navigate the dating world, then we have some news for you: toxic dating persists. Although one might think that we as a society would have evolved after so much ghosting, vulturing, future faking, and all the other problematic dating trends, the truth is that we haven't. If anything, modern dating has become even more difficult and disappointing. So we can't totally be surprised by submarining.

Before you start thinking of you and your love interest all cozied up in a submarine, off to explore the Great Barrier Reef, hold up. Submarining is what happens when someone disappears from your life, just so they can pop up again — and again and again. It's similar to haunting, in which someone who has ghosted you lingers by watching your Instagram stories, liking your posts, and similar behavior. But what makes submarining different is that the person in question reaches out to you and tries to make contact.

Getting to the bottom of why anyone would engage in submarining requires some help, so Women exclusively spoke to relationship expert and bestselling author of "Breakup Triage: The Cure for Heartache," Susan Winter, to get to a better understanding of the trend. It's one you want on your radar, because it's actually quite common.

So you had a few dates with someone and you're feeling good. They're not perfect, but they haven't given you the ick, so you keep seeing them to see where it goes. Then one day, they're gone. You give it a few days, wondering if you've been ghosted. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months. Yes, you've been ghosted. But just as you come to terms with this fact, the person — like a submarine coming up for air — resurfaces.

"'Submarining' is born of boredom and/or curiosity," Winter tells Women. "Boredom is the most egregious of the two reasons for popping back into an ex's life. The individual who resurfaces to someone they've formally discarded is there purely for the entertainment factor." According to Winter, if it's boredom, then there's a game involved. The person has come back to see how you'll respond or if they still have any power. "It's a mind game and its effect can be devastating for the recipient of this sudden, unexpected attention," says Winter.

Curiosity, on the other hand, isn't about playing with your emotions. It's about them second-guessing why they may have ghosted you. "Curiosity creates the impression of hope, which promotes mixed messages," says Winter. "Submarining driven by curiosity can also be a check-in as to the availability of the ex." It could be that they didn't find anyone new like they assumed they would, so they're wondering if they can get back together with you.

If it seems like someone is submarining you, even if you don't know whether it's boredom or curiosity that's driving them, Winter advises approaching the scenario with "extreme caution." It's important to think about this person and the situation rationally, and not be blinded by whatever lines they're tossing your way. After all, they've resurfaced for reasons that have everything to do with what they want for themselves. Whether it's a want for attention to see if they still have a chance with you or a want to revisit something that they foolishly let go of in an immature manner, your feelings are not being considered by them. 

"Remember the totality of their actions," says Winter. "If they discarded you once, why would you imagine they've suddenly 'come to their senses?' This is, unfortunately, the romantic hope that lives within many individuals who get caught up in the submarining loop." Depending on your experience with this person and how long you dated, it may not be easy to turn your back on their resurfacing, but you need to put yourself first. 

If you've done the work, put yourself first, been direct about your needs, talked it out, and reached the conclusion that the submariner deserves another shot, then how it plays out is on you. But to avoid future heartache, you better make sure their reasons for bowing out of your life are "extenuating circumstances that blocked their former participation in the relationship," says Winter. According to her, examples of such things are that they had to move out of the country, they needed to finalize things with an ex before moving on to you, they struggled with a mental health issue, or it was really bad timing for both of you — not just them.

"If the apparent 'issue' no longer exists, you might reconsider a period of careful observation and interaction," says Winter. "Hold off on the physical connection because that will cloud your thinking. Instead, meet in public places or chat on the phone. Communicate all your reservations. Get concrete answers that fully satisfy your questions." If anything they say or do doesn't add up or makes you question their commitment to round two, then let that submarine sink to the bottom of the ocean where it belongs.