“Gatsbying” is the latest dating trend we have to deal with, and pardon all our eye-rolls

Sometimes it feels like we’re living in a golden age of cringey dating trends. Haunting (ghosting but worse), stashing (hiding the person you’re dating), and breadcrumbing (leading someone on) are a few of the worst ones, but this newest dating trend — Gatsbying — is just bizarre.

Gatsbying is apparently when you, like Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, throw lavish parties in the hopes of attracting the object of your affection. However, Gatsbying for millennials means throwing a digital “party” and sharing lavish social media posts with the specific goal of your crush seeing it.

This term was coined by model Matilda Dods in a piece for TomBoyBeauty.com, who described it as posting “a video, picture or selfie to public social media purely for a love interest to see…”

"Why, instead of just sending a text to the boy that I like, am I throwing the equivalent of a champagne soaked, chandelier swinging, Charleston dancing party on my Instagram story?" she wrote. "All for that ceaseless green light across the water that is the attention of a boy who, let’s be real, probably isn’t good enough for me anyway?"

It’s not that Gatsbying is terrible like other dating trends — it just seems like a lot of energy could be better spent on a straightforward text. Why post a cryptic Boomerang from a party in the hopes that your love interest might see it and might DM you? Why not cut through the BS and just, you know, communicate directly with your crush?

Whether you Gatsby your internet crush or not, here’s to hoping your Gatsbying quest does not end in disaster like Jay Gatsby’s did.