Just when you think navigating the muddy waters of modern dating can't get any more complicated, a terrible new trend rears its ugly head.

Enter "submarining," the latest, nautically-themed way to mess with someone's head. First uncovered by Metro, submarining is the thing where someone you've been seeing disappears for an extended period but then randomly resurfaces with some version of a "Hey, what's up?" message.

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It's in the same family as zombie-ing -- when an ex ghosts but then comes back, acknowledging their absence and wanting to start things back up again. In the case of submarining, though, you don't get even a half-assed apology for them being MIA. They just pop back on the radar as if nothing odd has happened.

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Credit: giphy

Clearly, it's a shitty thing to do. And being on the receiving end of it can be shocking and often deeply upsetting. Whether you respond to the intrusion or not depends entirely on your particular circumstance.

But, sadly, there's not too much you can do to stop it from happening -- short of blocking someone preemptively on all platforms. You can at least take comfort in the fact that anyone who'd submarine you wasn't worth your time to start with.

Credit: giphy

Clearly it's time to move on and find someone whose only form of submarining involves bringing you a delicious sandwich.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to reflect that the trend was first covered by Metro, not Marie Claire as originally stated.

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