Delulu

Delulu is slang for delusional, usually about a crush or a relationship, and usually said with a wink. It began as a K-pop fandom jab at fans who believed they would end up with an idol. Since around 2023 it also means hopeful on purpose, as in "delulu is the solulu". Denial is not self-aware. Delulu usually is.

Updated October 4, 2026

Means

Delusional, often on purpose

First seen

Around 2014 in K-pop fandom (Urban Dictionary entry June 19, 2014); reclaimed on TikTok around 2023

Related terms

Situationship, Talking stage, Breadcrumbing, Red flags, Love bombing

In Swedish

Delulu

Delulu is an insult that people now use about themselves on purpose. Which meaning you get depends on who says it, and about whom.

Where delulu comes from

Delulu is “delusional” cut short, with the last syllable doubled.

It began in K-pop fandom online around 2013 and 2014, as a jab at fans who were sure they would end up with an idol. That is parasocial hope: a one-sided bond with someone who does not know you exist. Dictionary.com places the first uses in late 2013 to early 2014 (Dictionary.com). The earliest example Know Your Meme lists is a forum post from April 2014 (Know Your Meme), and the first Urban Dictionary entry is dated June 19, 2014 (Urban Dictionary, 2014). “Around 2014” is as precise as it gets.

The second meaning grew on TikTok. From late 2022, people started using delulu about their own crushes, and by around 2023 “delulu is the solulu” had turned the insult into a motto. Collins Dictionary shortlisted it for its 2024 Word of the Year, defined as “utterly mistaken or unrealistic in one’s ideas or expectations” (CBS News, 2024). Brat won.

Merriam-Webster’s slang entry fits both senses into one line: “delusional; audaciously self-confident” (Merriam-Webster). It can mean you have lost touch with reality, or that you have decided to ignore the odds.

Signs you are being delulu in dating

These come from how the word gets used, not from a study.

• You have a theory about why they have not replied, and the theory has subplots.
• “He’s just busy” is now in its third week.
• A like on your story counts as a signal. Two likes count as a conversation. A hand in their story is a soft launch, even when the hand is yours.
• You are in a situationship, and to your friends you call it a relationship.
• You are planning around things they never said: the trip, the holidays, meeting their parents.

What links the list is a gap the other person left empty and you filled in. It is also why breadcrumbing works on the hopeful. A few crumbs go a long way when you are willing to fill in the rest.

Useful delulu and costly delulu

It depends on what the belief is doing.

The useful kind is self-belief with a task attached. Thinking the person from the climbing gym might say yes, and then asking, is delulu in the motto sense. The worst case is a no you had already assumed. Early in a talking stage, a bit of this optimism is how anything gets started.

The problem kind replaces information you already have. They said they are not looking for anything serious. They canceled and did not reschedule. The story routes around those facts instead of through them. That is closer to denial, refusing to take in what you already know, than to hope. It is not manifesting either, which is the belief that wanting something hard enough makes it happen. Self-aware delulu usually knows the odds. The other kind has stopped checking them.

Three questions do most of the sorting:

1. Do their actions match your story?
2. Have they said anything that supports it?
3. Would a friend who heard only the facts, without your commentary, agree with you?

Mostly yes, and you are hopeful. Mostly no, and you are writing a romance with one character in it.

What to do about it

1. Separate what happened from what you think it meant. List what they said and what they did. Leave out what you think it meant. If both lists are short, that is information too.
2. Ask the question you have been answering for them. Something like: “Are we seeing each other, or am I reading into this?” It is a slightly awkward sentence. It is less awkward than another month of guessing.
3. Keep the confidence. The nerve to message first, or to suggest a second date, is the part of delulu worth holding on to. That nerve is most of what people call rizz.
4. Drop the part that explains away a no. If your story has to account for a canceled plan, a vague answer and a “not ready for anything right now”, those may be red flags you have been relabeling as quirks.

What the research says

We found no study of delulu. The two studies people tend to reach for are about narrower things, and they point in different directions.

The first is about partners people already have. Murray, Holmes and Griffin looked at dating and married couples and found that people who idealized their partner reported more satisfaction, love and trust. Among the dating couples, relationships with stronger idealization early on were more likely to last (Murray et al., 1996). A generous view of someone who is actually there seems to help. That is not the same as a generous view of someone who has not replied since Tuesday.

The second is about futures people do not have yet. Kappes and Oettingen compared positive fantasies about a desired future with fantasies that questioned it. One experiment found that the rosy version left people with less energy than the more questioning one (Kappes & Oettingen, 2011). Picturing the outcome may partly stand in for going after it.

Neither study tests “delulu is the solulu”. Our reading, which is not a finding, is that the delulu that helps looks more like the first study: aimed at a real person and followed by a real step. The kind that costs you looks more like the second, a pleasant picture that takes the place of doing anything.