zombieing

Zombieing is when someone who ghosted you comes back from the dead, usually with a breezy “hey stranger” text and no explanation. The person who does it is a zombie, and you’ve been zombied.

What it means

First they vanish. Weeks or months later, they’re back: a like on an old photo, a reply to your story, a “how’ve you been?” as if nothing happened. The giveaway is the missing apology. A zombie acts like the silence never happened and hopes you’ll go along with it.

Sometimes it’s boredom or loneliness. Sometimes they just broke up with whoever they ghosted you for. Either way, the name fits: something you thought was over has crawled back out of the ground.

Examples

• “He ghosted me in March and just texted ‘hey you 👀.’ I’m being zombied.”
• “Zombieing season starts the minute the weather gets cold.”
• “She liked a photo of mine from 2022. That’s a zombie move.”

Where it came from

The name is a horror-movie joke: something dead rising from the grave. It was already in modern dating glossaries by 2017; a Business Insider list republished by Fortune that September defined it. It got a second wave in April 2023, when singer-songwriter Mariel Darling posted a TikTok about being zombied that passed 1.5 million views, according to FOX.

How to respond

You don’t owe a zombie a reply. If you’re curious, asking “what happened?” is fair and usually tells you everything. If they can’t answer that, they’ll probably disappear again.

Zombieing vs. ghosting vs. orbiting

• Ghosting: disappearing with no explanation.
• Zombieing: coming back after ghosting, as if nothing happened.
• Orbiting: never really leaving, still watching your stories and liking posts from a distance.

Related terms

• ghosting: vanishing without a word
• breadcrumbing: small bits of attention to keep you hooked
• orbiting: watching from a distance after things end
• benching: keeping someone as a backup option

See more terms like this in our dating slang dictionary.