Forget Ghosting: Houseplanting Is the Newest Dating Trend, Reviving How to Lose a Guys in 10 Days's Love Fern

The love fern from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was way before it’s time. Sixteen years after Ben let his and Andie’s love fern die, “houseplanting” is officially a dating trend.

The term was applied to dating last week when well-known Instagram illustrator Samantha Rothenberg used the idea for a post. “Hey boy…Am I a houseplant? Because you haven’t paid attention to me in weeks and I think I’m dying,” a cartoon woman holding a wilting plant says in her comic. People seriously identified with this new way to think of the not-quite-ghosting dating phenomenon. The post got 13k likes and sparked a conversation about being treated like a houseplant in a relationship. “So many times I felt this. Like wtf? Am I not more value than a dog or plant?” one commenter wrote.

And as millennials are reaching an age when houseplants seem cool and they are trying to figure out how to keep one alive, this couldn’t be more relevant. Houseplants are trending, in more ways than one.

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We’ve all been houseplanted, but we never had a name for it. Until now. When it comes to dating, houseplanting is “neglecting the person that you are dating and not giving them nurturance and attention so the relationship can grow,” Dr. Paulette Sherman, Psy.D, psychologist and author of Dating from the Inside Out and the upcoming Facebook Dating: From 1st Date to Soulmate, tells Parade.com. “Relationships do require effort and work so if it’s just a jump in the hay you want, you won’t need to water and care for it! A plant is higher maintenance," just like a serious relationship. “It’s why singles often joke that they will give a potential date a plant or ‘love fern’ to see if they are ready for a long-term relationship,” she says. “If the plant dies, so will the relationship.” Or, as Andie pondered, “You let it die. Are you going to let us die?”

Dating and life coach Julie Melillo agrees, and worries about this trend putting down roots (lol). “Houseplanting is simply treating someone you're dating like a houseplant. Watering them occasionally, and not treating a person like a human with feelings and needs. It's not a good thing!” she tells Parade.com. “It's not much different from keeping someone on the back burner. It's selfish. It's not about meeting both people's needs; it's about keeping someone around just in case but putting in minimal effort so that plant doesn't die.” Houseplanters see partners as replaceable, she says. “If the plant does die? No tragedy. You can easily swap one plant for another.”

Online dating profile writer Eric Resnick breaks down the behavior of a neglectful gardener. “The ‘houseplanter’ is moving from plant to plant, watering them when they remember and focusing on the ones they like best.” Meanwhile, he says, the ‘houseplant’ is “sitting there, waiting for water, some good music and maybe a little attention while trying not to wilt and die from anticipation.”

Dr. Sherman thinks houseplanting is more common these days because our “poor dating behavior” has escalated. “It’s almost like these terms are reflecting what’s happening and then even further normalizing it,” she says. “With online dating, people are dating around and are busier than ever,” she points out. Who can tend to a garden when they can’t even take care of themselves? “They have also expanded the dating prospects of strangers and have less accountability and proximity to their dates, especially if they communicate online via text or messaging. It’s easier for it to be, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”

Melillo thinks it stems from online dating, which she feels has created a more impersonal and therefore apathetic dating world. “I would say it’s because there are a large number of emotionally unhealthy people who lack empathy online, and those people treat others as objects, whether that object is a houseplant, an ATM, etc.,” she explains. “They want to minimally invest while getting the most rewards for themselves.” They also tend to plant large gardens, just in case. “People who lack empathy or are very insecure often keep a collection of houseplants around, because they see others as something to be used and they're also terrified of being alone and without attention.” Which is ironic since they are in turn creating an environment in which they cannot provide enough attention to others. “So they create a grouping of plants, putting the least effort in possible, just to cover their bases.”

Here’s how to handle houseplanting in a way that would make Andie Anderson proud:

• “If you've always been the houseplant in the equation, it's time to get more proactive about your own happiness,” Resnick says. “Unless you have defined your relationship as exclusive, it's OK to get out there and meet more people. You'll gain confidence.” Dr. Sherman agrees that this could work because it “keeps you busy and changes the dynamic between you and the planter.”
• “No one likes to be ignored. It's rude and it tells people that they don't matter to you,” Resnick says. “If you are watering so many plants that they are all starting to die on the vine, there's a good chance that you are spreading yourself too thin and need to keep a smaller garden,” he warns.
• If you feel taken for granted by someone who's dating around, “act like a plant and ‘leave’,” one Instagrammer so brilliantly advises. Or, “you can nurture yourself, double down on your own life and the things that make you happy and give the relationship a little more time to see whether things change once you are making yourself happier and loving your own life,” Dr. Sherman suggests.

New to houseplanting? You're not alone.Click here to read about how online daters are actually more likely to commit.