People Convinced That Forehead Kisses Now Carry A Much More Worrying Meaning

In the ever-growing list of red flags and dating icks, it now looks like even a gentle forehead kiss has found itself with a new and slightly gloomy meaning. What was once seen as a small, affectionate gesture is apparently being reinterpreted in a way that has made a lot of people uneasy.

My time spent on dating apps is well behind me, and honestly, seeing the strange habits becoming popular with younger daters makes me feel relieved about that. The trends seem to shift every month, and many of them sound exhausting.

In the past few months alone, we’ve seen the rise of the Bob the Builder dating trend, where people invite someone over mainly to get help fixing things around their home. We’ve also heard complaints about 'mankeeping', which some women say is enough to make them avoid dating altogether.

And that doesn’t even touch on today’s more unusual sex trends, where it’s become common to hear couples talk openly about swinging, or even head onto a TV show and reveal everything about their private lives to the world.

But even with all the odd behavior floating around online, a forehead kiss has usually held a positive meaning. It’s always felt like a tender gesture, something warm and reassuring, at least from what most people have known.

Some Gen Z daters, though, who say they’re struggling with finding something meaningful, now claim that the gesture might have taken on a much less comforting message in the modern dating scene.

Nothing but doom and despair here Getty Stock

Rather than leaving someone feeling cared for, the kiss is now being linked with dread, as some believe it’s a subtle sign that a casual romance or short-lived situationship is on the verge of ending, with ghosting usually right behind it.

Madi Schnepfe told Dazed about her experience with what she called the 'forehead kiss of doom', saying: "He kissed me on the forehead, at that point I just knew I was never going to see him again."

She explained that things went downhill fast afterward, adding: "Within two days, we never spoke again."

Another young woman, Madeleine Sims, even described the act as 'the kiss of death' after she went through a similar experience and found herself single soon after a soft kiss on the forehead.

She added: "It's a really weird cultural indicator of what is happening in the dating scene right now."

So for anyone dating right now, you may want to save the forehead kisses until things feel solid and both people are genuinely sure of each other, because the gesture might send a message you never intended.

I really hope she wasn't ghosted after this Getty Stock

Thankfully, babies and young kids remain blissfully unaware of these trends, since the last thing any parent needs is their child bursting into tears because they think a quick forehead kiss means you’re not coming back.