It was while sitting on a beach with six of my oldest girlfriends that I first heard about breadcrumbing in dating and relationships. As a mum, my first thought was that it was something to do with bribing a child or pet to do something. But, while the friend who was talking does have a dog, she is currently single and doesn’t have any children so I soon realised it was something to do with dating.
She explained that breadcrumbing is when one person will engage in flirty but sporadic communication, typically via social media or WhatsApp, but then fail to commit to anything further. It sounded very frustrating to me and like hurtful behaviour, so I decided to do a bit more digging into how common it is and why people do it.
