In the old days, there was love and marriage. These days, it’s all about ghosting… and whatever new dating trend has replaced it. The latest thing to freak out about is called stashing. If you thought that ghosting was bad, just wait—stashing is even worse.
- It means that a guy is your boyfriend… but only in secret. The definition of stashing is that you’re in a relationship but the person that you’re dating has zero interest in letting other people know about you. He won’t talk about you on Facebook or Instagram. He won’t tag you in photos. He won’t tell his family and friends about you, and no, you’re never going to meet them. He’s your secret BF and it’s just as awful as it sounds. If you’ve been hidden before but there wasn’t a real term for it, it’s going to bring back all kinds of crappy memories.
- It’s more immature than ghosting. Yeah, that seemed impossible, but it really is. If a guy stashes you, then he’s basically hiding you, and he can’t own up to how he feels. Is there anything more pathetic and lame than that? Talk about the most rhetorical question ever.
- It’s going to make you feel bad about yourself. It’s easy to feel like this guy is ashamed of you if he’s stashing you. After all, what else are you supposed to think? You’re not going to feel good about the whole thing. It’s going to be pretty difficult to date someone else after this experience because you’re going to be paranoid that this is going to happen again.
- It’s about control. Ghosting is often a reaction to not knowing what to say to someone or not wanting to hurt their feelings. Sometimes, there are even good intentions behind it. Stashing is a jerk’s game. No positive intentions here. A guy who stashes you wants to control you. Why would you even want to date someone like that? There’s no way that this situation is going to benefit you.
- You’ll always wonder if it’s your fault. No matter how strong and confident you are, you’re going to wonder if you did anything wrong. It’s going to feel like the stashing was totally your fault. If you had acted differently, would he have gone public with you? Why did this happen? You’re going to have questions and no answers, and that’s truly unfair.
- You’re going to be confused AF. If this guy can act like your boyfriend and you do tons of things that couples do, then why is he doing this? If he is, then why start dating you at all? Sure, you thought that getting ghosted was confusing and left you wondering what the hell was happening. This is going to be ten times worse.
- It’s different from commitment phobia. You might think that this sounds like commitment phobia, but it’s actually not. Yeah, a guy who stashes you clearly doesn’t want a girlfriend, but he’s more of a game player than anything else. If he was scared to commit, he would settle for a casual thing. But since you feel like you’re already in a relationship with him, he’s clearly acting more serious than that.
- He’s doing this for a reason. There are a bunch of reasons a guy would stash you. Maybe he’s lying about some part of his identity (like he’s actually unemployed or doesn’t even live in your city). Maybe he’s insecure. Maybe he’s just using you for sex. Any way you look at it, it’s not good. Since a relationship is supposed to be about being vulnerable and honest and letting someone get to know the real you, that is never going to happen if stashing is going on.
- He could be cheating on you. Put yourself in your BFF’s shoes. If she told you that a guy was doing this to her, you would totally think that he was cheating on her (possibly with a ton of girls). That’s just where your mind would immediately go. While it sucks to believe that about someone that you care about, there’s no way for you to trust him once you learn the truth.
- It’s never going to end well. Even if you hear why a guy stashed you and he swore that he wanted to be your real boyfriend, you would never be able to actually be with him. How could you ever believe him? You thought that you were already in a relationship and that you had a future together. Anything that he says is just total bull. Hopefully you never get stashed, but if you do, remember this: you totally deserve a guy who’s going to be so into you, he’s going to want to tell the entire world. Otherwise, why even bother?
