Lexicon ·
cloaking
noun, also verb (to cloak)
- Stated meaning
- Standing someone up for a date and blocking them on every app at the same time.
- Operating meaning
- A cancellation carried out by deleting the channel it would have been sent through, so the other party learns of it by waiting.
- Origin
- Named by Rachel Thompson of Mashable in April 2019, after a date arranged through Hinge ended with her blocked and stood up.
In April 2019 Mashable (opens in a new window) reported that its own Rachel Thompson “experienced something so unusual, she coined a term for it.” The term was cloaking, “the practice of blocking someone whilst simultaneously standing them up for an IRL date.” The date had been arranged on Hinge, and the video’s title gives the order of events: blocked, and stood up.
The genus already had a word for an ending with no sentence in it. Cloaking added one for an ending with no address. On an app the conversation is often the only record either party holds of the other, and a block removes it, so the person waiting cannot ask where the other is, or confirm that any message arrived.
Under load, cloaking cancels the date by deleting the channel the cancellation would have travelled through. The party who stays home pays nothing for the evening. The party who goes pays for the journey, the wait and whatever was ordered during it, and receives notice of the cancellation in the only form left, which is the passage of time. The ledger for the evening has 2 columns and 1 of them was closed before it opened.