PSA: "Prowling" is the new dating trend all single people need to be on guard for in 2019.

Ahh, isn’t it great that with each new year comes a new range of woeful dating trends to be aware of?

We love that we can add buzzwords to our vocabulary that describe the never-ending pitfalls of being a single person in the terrifyingly fickle age we live in.

It’s fun.

We are having the BEST time.

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Meet “prowling”, ghosting’s shadier younger brother, otherwise known as the term used to describe the way in which some romantic interests yo-yo in and out of your life just because they damn want to.

You know, you went on a few dates, you developed feelings you thought might be reciprocated, they vanished, then a few months later… magically reappeared under the guise of just wanting to know how you are, probably via a frustratingly familiar text?

Yes, *those* people are called prowlers, and they’re here to do nothing but waste your time and treat your feelings like fruit ninja – a game to play while on the toilet.

They’re frustratingly hot and cold, but they want to keep you warm, like a human bain-marie.

Why?

Because between serious partners, you’ll do.

It’s not that they don’t like you, it’s just that you’re not… the person they see themselves ending up with, so while they wait for that person, they occupy their time with someone whose company they mildly enjoy. You. Their warm food water bath.

(Do the toilet and gross slimy-food analogies paint a scummy enough picture for you? Good.)

Dating: Translated. Post continues after video.

While those of us emotionally mature enough will, upon realising we don’t see a future with someone, have the uncomfortable conversation and leave it at that, the prowler pops you in the “maybe pile” and swoops back in whenever they feel like it.

Usually when you’re happily single, minding your own business, living your life.

Eugénie Legendre, a representative for dating app Happn, told Yahoo the prowler’s MO is that they’re “keen to hunt you down one minute, but then there’s no trace of them the next”.

“Hunt us down”?

Well that sounds… terrifying.

No thanks, prowler.

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He added: “The prowler is always more hassle and hurt than they are worth.”

Thankfully (I guess?) I’ve never experienced the prowler as the people I’m ghosted by usually leave my life and stay out.

Well, until they pop up on my Facebook newsfeed with a fiance or a baby, that is.

But I’m sure plenty of you have had a “prowler” in your life at some point, and if you have one in your life right now, promptly show them the door.

You are not fruit ninja or a bain-marie.