“Breadcrumbing” is, in fairy tales, a small boy abandoned in the woods by his parents trying to find his way back home.
In social and romantic terms, we use it to talk about some kind of Little Thumb who is playing with your feelings like a cat with a half-dead mouse.

Explanation.

How does it show in real life ? Well…
– Receiving messages outrageously short to ungodly hours : “Hey what’s up ?”, “What are you doing?”, etc
– Seeing a few Likes on your old vacation pictures of 2015
– Being tagged on a random article which is supposed to be relatable to you
– Receiving a message with a link to a viral video or a picture, with the lines “it made me think of you, wink wink, amused emoji”
– Or receiving lame excuses to cancel a date art the very last moment

In a romantic relationship that includes the sexual component, the Little Thumb is the one who gives you enough so that you keep hoping and developing attachment, but who, deep down, does not want a real relationship with you.
It can last a looong time, and hurt sooo much.

It is not necessarily a will to hurt… But sometimes, our ape brain needs to fill up a crack, but we don’t know which one, nor how to… And in a momentum of survival, we tend to choose the easy way, which is sometimes to turn towards this other person, who is available and waiting for us. Tell me you never hurt someone without wanting to even once ? We all did it I think.

So what can we do against that ?
Well, if you feel like you’re being the pigeon being fed with crumbs, the best way is to stand up for yourself, defend your little self, speak up. It is okay to want more, it is okay to claim we deserve better.
We can’t blame someone who loads it up as if we were a little donkey if we never really said our back is hurting.
And if you feel you’re being a Little Thumb ? Well we can, for instance, find someone who wants the same thing we need right now, which means no strings attached, to have fun without hurting anyone. Or, I promise you that staying alone never killed anyone, and our ego is stronger than we think and it might survive it :-)

I have personally not always been an example on that regard. Wether it be in the team Little Thumb nor team Pigeon. But it’s okay to be wrong sometimes, as long as it helps going forward. It’s okay to not want to only eat crumbs. It’s okay to want a real f*cking toast at some point. With butter. And jam.

So, where are you at right now ? Team Pigeon ? Team Little Thumb ? Team Toast ?

Randomly yours.
Sophie Lambda