The “Date Them ’Til You Hate Them Theory” isn’t about stormy splits — it’s about slowly ghosting your way out of love.
The buzzy breakup strategy is racking up views on TikTok, though relationship pros say it could be downright toxic.
The trend traces back to creator Meg Neil (@themegneil), who went viral after spilling how she slipped out of a four-year relationship without crumbling.
“I dated him until I hated him,” she declared in a TikTok video.
Rather than nagging, fighting or demanding change, she simply pulled the plug on her emotions. “You’re going to let them disrespect you,” Neil noted.
“You’re going to watch them disrespect you…until you no longer want to associate with them anymore.”
It’s a breakup by slow burn — starve the spark, let it rot and watch love curdle into disgust.
Suddenly, Neil said, the things that once gutted her — like his shrugging indifference and annoying sounds of him breathing — became what set her free.
In the comments, fellow women piled on with their own war stories of loving a guy straight into loathing — and the brutal lessons that came with it.
“Hate to say it but it’s the only way to guarantee you move on fully, clean cut,” one user wrote as another added, “This is me rn. Best way to leave, it’s like you already processed it all.”
Someone else chimed in, writing, “firm believer in this method,” as one other replied, “Hate to say that this works, don’t fight back just sit there and watch how embarrassing it is for him AND for you, get out of that.”
In a similar TikTok video, user Amber Hutton (@ambermayhutton) said that while “date them until you hate them” might seem like a “controversial sentence,” she found that, essentially, “you will not let go of — and move on from — that person” until you have a reality check.
She believes that you need to “get to a point yourself where you’ve had enough” and “choose to walk away,” while realizing what you “do and do not deserve.”
“Deciding to just walk away isn’t always the easiest thing to do, even if it’s the best thing to do long-term,” she went on.
But the question remains — do you really have to get to this loathing point to end things?
While TikTok fans hailed this playbook, Dr. Tara Suwinyattichaiporn calls it what it really is: classic neglect.
“Some people use this approach because they lack effective communication skills to reject someone or enforce their boundaries,” she told PureWow in a recent interview.
“Once you feel constant negative emotions in your relationship, it doesn’t stay confined to that relationship. It bleeds into other aspects of your life and wellness,” she explained.
Experts agree that neglect is one of the worst moves of all. What feels like control (staying quiet instead of facing the issue head-on) is really just extending pain.
As The Post previously reported, “Banksying” is a similar slow-burn breakup move where you ghost your feelings until you snap and disappear — named after elusive street artist Banksy, because like his famous murals, the split usually hits out of nowhere.
“Banksying happens more now, especially with the proliferation of dating apps, where people have developed poor dating etiquette,” Amy Chan, a relationship expert, recently told USA Today.
“The person withdrawing gets the ability to process the breakup on their own terms, before they hand the memo to the other person, who ends up being in total shock.”
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