“Follow me, I run away from you, run away from me, I follow you.” This well-known maxim in the world of seduction could be the inspiration for the new trend of “cricketing”, or the art of not responding immediately to messages for the sole purpose of being desired. A little game very (too?) Widespread in the world of cruising, to be considered as a real red flag.
Receive an SMS from the person you want, and not answer it right away in order to be desired? You’ve probably already done it, if only to avoid the cliché of the “desperate girl” who responds at full speed, and who risks being rejected because seducing her does not really represent a challenge. From now on, this kind of fairly well-known attitude has a name in the great dictionary of seduction: “cricketing”. But what does this new Anglicism mean, and what does it have to do with the locusts that give it its name?
To undergo the “cricketing”, it is to speak in the vacuum
Ghosting, firedooring, flexting … The words (and evils) of 2.0 relationships are sometimes hard to understand, and the phrase “cricketing” is no exception. To understand the principle, you have to go straight to the United States. There, in popular culture, locust chirping is used to describe an awkward, embarrassing moment of silence. This process is particularly used in sitcoms, or even in reality TV. In France, we tend to use the expression “un ange passe” to qualify this kind of heavy silence. But since Anglicisms are so popular in the field of dating and relationships, the word chosen for this type of attitude is therefore cricketing.
But concretely, what does this expression represent? Quite simply the fact of being desired, permanently, in order to create a feeling of frustration in the person who covets us. To do this, there are many techniques: do not read the messages right away, leave them in “view” to answer only many hours later, do not pick up your phone in case of a call, or pretend to be unavailable for an appointment, just to be able to delay the day of the date a little, and therefore once again to be made to wait, to be desired.
How do you know if you are a victim of cricketing?
Sometimes, it is difficult to determine if you are a victim of firedooring (a relationship with no one, editor’s note) or of cricketing, since these two behaviors are quite similar. In the first case, your crush just isn’t making an effort. The cricketing enthusiast is ready to do it. But only when he decides to. Basically, its goal is to frustrate you as much as possible to hook the fish. Result: He does not respond to messages right away, disappears for hours on end, and this absence can easily create an effect of lack that feels like attachment. When in reality it is more of a worry than anything else. However, when the person on the other side of the phone finally decides to answer, they pretend nothing has happened. The tone is cordial, she asks questions, asks for your news. In short, she doesn’t act like she doesn’t give a damn about you. In short, the signals get mixed up, and it becomes difficult to navigate.
Read also: How to recognize “gaslighting”, a devastating manipulation technique?
What is this behavior due to?
The problem with cricketing is that this behavior often stems from fears. Between the maxim “Follow me, I run away from you, run away from me, I follow you”, and the fear of sounding like a desperate person if you respond too quickly to someone else’s messages, it is easy to fall into a vicious cycle of taking longer and longer to respond. Especially if the person opposite does the same. Cricketing can then become a way of getting revenge: “It took him 1 hour to respond to my message? Well, I’ll take 1 hour 15 minutes, that will suit him.” We have known healthier … Only here, this kind of attitude has been popularized by romantic films and series, and our ex who practiced this technique, gave us bad habits, which we tend to repeat . Not easy, therefore, to extricate itself from it.
How to react to cricketing?
If you notice that your interlocutor is often connected but does not answer you, that your messages are read but remain unanswered, or quite simply that the response timing is always the same, it is important to ask yourself question: is your crush really doing it on purpose, or is it just very busy? A discussion is called for. Sometimes our interlocutors don’t really realize that they can hurt us by acting like this, and this technique can sometimes even hide a real attachment: your crush may not want to hurt you. languishing in order to seduce you better, he or she may just be afraid that you will run away. Hence the interest in having an open-hearted discussion to express your feelings about this kind of attitude, before the situation escalates! If the intentions of your interlocutor are commendable, their attitude will adjust quickly after this clarification. Otherwise, it is simply that the person in question does not deserve your attention.
Laetitia Reboulleau
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