Breadcrumbing is a gift from certain people, these signs will reveal if you are one of the recipients

According to the Urban Dictionary, breadcrumbing has a variety of meanings but we will stick to just 2 for the purpose of this post. 1. When the “crush” has no intentions of taking things further, but they like the attention. So they flirt here or there, send dm/texts just to keep the person interested, knowing damn well they’re staying single. 2. When a guy or girl gives someone just enough attention to keep their hope of a relationship alive.

The way to look at this is to realize that people who leave breadcrumbs have selfishness and egotism behind this tactic. The one leaving breadcrumbs hangs on to you only if you play by their rules and those rules serve their self-esteem and not yours.

Now that you are aware of what breadcrumbing is, I am going to tell you the signs that you should look out for

They offer sporadic messages: The breadcrumbing person will send sporadic messages just to check-in and make sure you’re still interested. They may or may not attempt to spend time with you.
They give vague expressions of interest in spending more time together: Those who use breadcrumbing to string people along always make vague remarks about spending time together.
They get in touch with you late at night: The late-night messages of a breadcrumber will be mostly about making sure you’re still interested in them and when the messages come, they come with no regard.
Most messages (if not all) are about hooking up: If you’re being breadcrumbed, chances are most of the messages you receive from the perpetrator are about hooking up and they probably expect you to be grateful for their interest in spending time with you.
Your gut tells you something is off: When someone is breadcrumbing you, you’re likely hearing alarm bells ringing like crazy and you are not sure what it means. All you know, when you stop to really think about it, is that something feels off.
You start to wonder what you did wrong: If the one breadcrumbing you has gotten good at it, they might make you doubt yourself and actually question what you did wrong. They’ll shame you if they can.
When you start pulling away, suddenly they up their game: As soon as you send the message to the breadcrumber that you’re losing interest in the relationship, that’s when they’ll expend the energy to try to hang on to you.
They use passive aggression to punish or manipulate you: Since breadcrumbing is a type of passive-aggressive behaviour, don’t be surprised if, when you confront your crush on their behaviour, they use other passive-aggressive tactics to retaliate.