Hyping: The dating tactic you may not have even realised you were doing

Are you always the one before the one?

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Have you ever dated someone - maybe for weeks, maybe for months - only for them to end it with you because they’re not ready for commitment, but miraculously announce their engagement on Facebook six months later?

Congratulations, you probably hyped them.

The concept of hyping is thus: when the person is with you, you boost their ego and get them through a few relationship issues. They then decide they can do better so swan off to someone new.

It’s much like the concept of a ‘hype man’ at concerts or shows - they’re the warm-up act who gets the crowd going and hypes them up to prepare for the main performer. The poor hype man never gets the glory.

Forget the one that got away, being the hyper is essentially being the one before the one, as love and sex blogger Vix Meldrew points out:

“I dated Jim for six weeks. At times it felt like I was his personal counsellor who just wasn’t being paid by the hour but in fine dining and cunnilingus. Jim was just out of a serious relationship and had major regrets about how he handled himself during it.

“I talked him through his demons and gave him ways to do things differently next time (I know… eye-roll at me). He made promises for the future which included making things official and introducing me to his Mum. Then he ghosted.

“A couple of months later, his Instagram blared declarations of an engagement to his new girlfriend before my bum print had even left his sofa.”

Brutal.

For some people who allow themselves to be hyped, it’s all about the attention and power.

“I’ve dated women who were more into me than I was into them in the past, purely because it made me feel awesome,” 32-year-old Tom* admitted to The Independent. “ I was never going to stay with them for long though.”

So is hyping just a sign that one person likes the other more than they like them? Or is it a case of making someone ‘better’ which thus makes them think they can do better?

“It’s unbelievably frustrating to think that we’ve hyped these partners only for their new partners to reap the benefits, however what we need to accept, to be able to move on, is that for whatever reason, they weren’t hyped up for us and that’s what’s meant to be,” Meldrew says.

And, as she points out, perhaps somewhere, someone is being hyped up for you.

*Name has been changed