Paperclipping

Paperclipping is when someone you dated, often an ex, pops up every so often with a low-effort message and no plan to meet. The name comes from Clippy, the Microsoft Office paperclip that appeared whether you needed it or not. Breadcrumbing is a steadier drip that hints at more. A paperclip only checks that you are still there.

Updated October 3, 2026

Means

An occasional low-effort check-in to keep you on file

First seen

July 18, 2019 (an illustration by Samantha Rothenberg); in the press from July 2019

Related terms

Breadcrumbing, Zombieing, Orbiting, Ghosting, Situationship

Paperclipping can be dated to the day: July 18, 2019, when the illustrator Samantha Rothenberg posted a drawing of Clippy on Instagram (Fox News, 2019).

Paperclipping vs breadcrumbing and zombieing

All five terms below describe someone who is half there, or gone. What separates them is how often you hear from them and what the contact seems to be for. No dictionary draws these lines, so the table is our editorial reading of how the words get used.

The pair that gets mixed up most is paperclipping and zombieing. A zombie goes properly silent and then comes back once. A paperclipper never quite leaves and never quite returns. NBC News blurs the two, since its definition starts with a disappearance (NBC News, 2019). We follow Rothenberg’s narrower version, where the repeated check-ins are the behavior.

Signs you are being paperclipped

• The gaps are long and oddly regular. A message every few weeks or months. Often enough to notice, too far apart to be a conversation.
• The content is filler. A meme, a “thinking of you”, a birthday text, a song that reminded them of you.
• There is nothing to answer. No day, no place, no question that needs a reply.
• It tends to follow your silence. You stop replying or posting, and a few weeks later, there it is.
• Replying changes nothing. You get one more exchange, then quiet until the next round.

One birthday text from an old match is manners. Three empty check-ins a year is the pattern.

Why exes paperclip

We found no study of motives, so read these as the explanations that come up most, not as findings.

• A spare on file. A message takes seconds and keeps you within reach if their current plans fall apart. With real dates on offer, that is cookie jarring.
• Boredom. They were scrolling, your name came up, and they sent something.
• Checking the door is unlocked. A reply proves they could come back. It does not mean they want to.
• Not wanting to be the one who vanished. A friendly message now and then lets them feel the ending was civil.

In most of these, the message is about being remembered. You are mostly the audience.

What to do about it

First check how much the messages bother you. If a meme three times a year does not, there is nothing to fix. If each one means an evening of rereading old chats, pick a reply.

1. Say nothing. No reply is a complete answer. If another check-in arrives, it gets the same.
2. Close it in one line. “Good to hear from you. I’m not up for staying in touch, take care.” Polite, and final.
3. Hand them the plan. “If you want to meet, say when.” Only send this if you would actually go. It puts the next step on their side, which is usually where paperclips stop.

If you want quiet without a scene, mute rather than block. Muting takes them out of view without announcing anything. And do not send a paperclip back. A “haha, same” or a heart reaction is the very message this page describes, pointed the other way.

What the research says

We found no study of paperclipping. It is a press category with expert opinion attached, and the experts quoted in the coverage are giving opinions, not data.

The origin is better documented than the behavior. Rothenberg, who posts as Violet Clair, published the illustration on Instagram, and Fox News ran the story on July 31, 2019, citing Metro (Fox News, 2019). Speaking to Refinery29 that October, she described a paperclipper as someone who keeps you on the back burner and gets in touch to check you are still an option, not to meet (Refinery29, 2019). NBC News, on October 18, 2019, defined it as vanishing after early dating and resurfacing months later with casual check-ins (NBC News, 2019). No dictionary has an entry so far.

The nearest numbers are for its steadier cousin. In a survey of 626 Spanish adults aged 18 to 40, 35.6% had been breadcrumbed in the past year and 36.7% had breadcrumbed someone (Navarro et al., 2020). 86.1% of participants had never heard the word breadcrumbing before the survey (Navarro et al., 2020). The figures suggest that low-effort contact that goes nowhere is common. They say nothing about how many exes send a meme every few months.