New MyIQ research suggests employees are borrowing the language of modern dating to describe a workplace defined less by open conflict than by ambiguity, mixed signals and delayed commitment.
A promotion that never arrives. A recruiter who disappears after multiple interviews. A manager who offers praise but no clear path forward. According to a new MyIQ survey of 13,482 working adults across the United States, the United Kingdom, Latin America, and Europe, workers are increasingly using the vocabulary of modern dating to describe professional relationships that feel difficult to define.
The finding is not simply that terms such as situationship, mixed signals, breadcrumbing, and ghosting have moved from social media into workplace conversation. It is that many employees now appear to see the emotional structure of work through the same lens: interest without commitment, encouragement without clarity, intimacy without security.
The survey found that 68% of employees feel they have experienced a workplace relationship that was never clearly defined but still carried expectations. Another 61% said they had received mixed signals from a manager, colleague, or employer about where they stood professionally.
In the workplace, the situationship does not usually look dramatic. It often takes quieter forms. The first is the promotion situationship: repeated conversations about growth, new responsibilities, or future leadership, without a formal change in title, compensation, or authority. Nearly three in five workers, or 58%, said they had remained in a role longer than they wanted because they felt something better was always being implied.
The second is workplace breadcrumbing, reported by 54% of respondents. This is the pattern of receiving enough praise, access, or informal reassurance to stay engaged, but not enough material change to alter the employee’s position. It can appear as vague encouragement after a performance review, repeated references to future opportunities, or inclusion in strategic conversations that never translate into advancement.
The third is professional ghosting, a term employees use for silence after a process has already become emotionally or practically significant. Recruiters who vanish after several interviews, managers who stop responding after raising a possible internal move, or senior colleagues who withdraw after relying heavily on an employee’s labour all fall into this category.
The fourth is corporate mixed signalling: the gap between what organisations say and what employees experience. Companies may promote belonging, transparency and development, while leaving workers uncertain about job security, progression or whether their contributions have changed their standing.
Almost half of respondents, 49%, said terms originally associated with dating now describe parts of their work life more accurately than traditional corporate language. That finding suggests a wider failure of workplace vocabulary. Phrases such as “career pathway”, “development conversation,” and “future opportunity” may sound orderly, but employees increasingly use more emotionally precise terms when the reality feels unresolved.
Sarah Meyer, Managing Director of MyIQ, said the pattern reveals how workers interpret uncertainty rather than how they talk about dating.
“What matters is not that employees are using dating language at work. It is that the language fits,” Meyer said. “A situationship is not defined by the absence of interest. It is defined by the absence of clarity. That is why the comparison is landing for so many workers. They are describing professional relationships where expectations exist, but commitment remains deliberately or structurally unclear.”
The desire for directness was one of the clearest signals in the data. 63% of workers said they would rather receive a clear rejection for a promotion, project, or opportunity than be left in ongoing uncertainty.
For years, the dominant workplace debates centred on burnout, flexibility and work-life balance. Those issues have not disappeared. But the MyIQ findings point to another pressure point: clarity. Employees appear less willing to interpret signals indefinitely, especially when ambiguity keeps them emotionally invested in roles, managers or organisations that never define the terms of the relationship.
The more revealing shift may not be linguistic at all. Workers are not just making office life sound like dating. They are using the language of dating because it describes a familiar emotional condition: being asked to stay committed to something that refuses to clearly commit back.
About MyIQ:
MyIQ was launched in 2024 and is used by over a million individuals worldwide. It is a digital self-knowledge platform that offers more than an IQ score, with over 9 million completed tests across the various test categories: cognitive, personality, and relationships, all with personalised, actionable insights. The platform offers over 25 brain games, more than 150 intelligence puzzles, over 20 hours of expert video content, and 300+ available lessons on emotional intelligence, problem-solving, innovation, confidence-building, and decision-making. Through its IQ test, full-spectrum personality assessment, and relationship insight quiz, MyIQ delivers structured, personalized feedback that helps individuals better understand their inner world and behaviour.
MyIQ was launched in 2024 and is used by over a million individuals worldwide. It is a digital self-knowledge platform that offers more than an IQ score, with over 9 million completed tests across the various test categories: cognitive, personality, and relationships, all with personalised, actionable insights. The platform offers over 25 brain games, more than 150 intelligence puzzles, over 20 hours of expert video content, and 300+ available lessons on emotional intelligence, problem-solving, innovation, confidence-building, and decision-making. Through its IQ test, full-spectrum personality assessment, and relationship insight quiz, MyIQ delivers structured, personalized feedback that helps individuals better understand their inner world and behaviour.