2019 has been the year of new dating terms. While we all of course know of cuffing , ghosting , and breadcrumbing , seemingly a dozen new phrases have butted their way into our mainstream lexicon this past year, including dogfishing , fizzing , and love bombing .

As this decade comes to an end, there’s one final dating term that we’re going to discuss here at Men’s Health. Then come 2020, we promise to take a slight break from discussing newly coined dating phrases, because let’s be honest, none of them are ever going to be nearly as good as the OG term: ghosting.

The newest dating term is Holiday-specific and it’s called snowglobing,

Cosmo writer Candice Jalili describes the phenomenon as , “The person you've been dating is using the holiday season to con you into thinking you two are more serious than you are.” She continues, “This person spends the entire month of December with you, making you feel like you're inside your own little wintery fairytale, only to unceremoniously dump your ass in January.”

Rough.

The holidays are undoubtedly a confusing time if you’ve recently started dating a new partner. If you’ve only been dating for a few weeks (or even a couple of months), should you bring that person to your office holiday party, to you friend’s Christmas gathering, to your childhood home to meet your parents? What about gifts? It seems wrong to not give someone you’re dating a present, but that can also make the relationship seem more serious than it actually is.

Then, of course, love is in the air — or at least that’s what every single Christmas movie over the past three decades will have you believe. It’s tough to not kept swept up by all the love and merriment.

There's actually a term in social psychology called the "misattribution of arousal," that describes this phenomenon. It's a process whereby people mistake the cause of what's arousing them (i.e., the situation is arousing, but it's being attributed to the person).

That’s why I may just have to disagree with Jalili. I don’t think snowglobing is usually as conscious a manipulation as she perceives it to be. I don’t think most people knowingly invite a date to every single holiday event from December 10-January 1 with the thought, “Oh, definitely getting rid of her the moment the ball drops in New York City. A final kiss and goodbye!” I think most people get caught up in the holiday spirit. It's hard not to be.

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Perhaps I’m being naive. Perhaps most people are trash. This very well could be the case.

Regardless, it’s likely a good idea to slow down and not get swept up by your new partner this holiday season. Besides, you really shouldn’t spend every waking moment of the holidays with someone you just met. You should spend it with family and friends, too.

And if you find yourselves drunk texting as the night finishes since you both consumed too much eggnog, then meet up for a sloppy holiday sex. At least at this point, neither you nor your partner will think the relationship is any more serious than it actually is.

Zachary Zane Zachary Zane is a Brooklyn-based writer, speaker, and activist whose work focuses on lifestyle, sexuality, culture, and entertainment.

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