The dating world has added a new term to its vocabulary, with scores of folks taking to social media to hotly debate the concept known as “Shrekking”.
As its name implies, the term refers to hopeless romantics who purposefully settle for someone less attractive than themselves, à la Princess Fiona in the Shrek franchise.
It’s thought that by ‘dating down,’ people can land themselves a happily ever after with someone who hopefully treats them better and doesn’t suffer from pretty privilege.
While Shrekking sounds good in theory, some daters have expressed their regret after discovering that despite their hopes otherwise, they were still treated poorly — by someone who looks like Shrek, no less.
This experience, of dating down only to realise the partner is still terrible, is known as “getting Shrek’d”, and a bunch of social media users seem to be all-too familiar with the lore.
“We give the guy we’re not attracted to a chance thinking that he will for sure know what he has and treat us well,” one TikToker said, “and then we get traumatised by a whole troll”.
“Finally getting a fun term for ‘when you give a 3/10 guy a chance and he does you dirty,’” another user wrote, with a third saying they’ve “been Shrek’d too many times”.
The term is so buzzy that it caught the attention of dating coach Amy Chan, who warned folks that Shrekking is rife with assumptions, and therefore runs the risk of daters being let down when their expectations aren’t met.
“It backfires when someone assumes that just because they’re dating ‘down’ in looks, they’ll automatically be treated better,” Chan told the New York Post.
“Modern dating has gotten so complicated that we need new words just to describe what’s happening to us.”
She has a point, because between ghosting, breadcrumbing, love bombing, catfishing now Shrekking, I’m half-inclined to just give up on dating altogether — not just because my Hinge match hasn’t replied in weeks.
Seriously, the dating world is so rough that I’d actually be lucky to land myself a stocky, burly boy like Shrek.
Heck, I’d even settle for Lord Farquaad.
Lead images: DreamWorks and TikTok
