- 18:00
In the digital age, benching has become a subtle way of managing romantic expectation. Hovering between intermittent presence and deferred desire, it reflects a modern economy of relationships in which uncertainty itself becomes both connection and power.
In the new digital dictionary, we are learning to decode, “to bench” means keeping someone on the sidelines, like a player who is sent neither off the field nor fully into the game, but kept warmed up, available, and waiting. Benching is not the radical severing of connection seen in ghosting, nor the deliberate freezing of icing. It belongs to an economy of in-betweens, a careful management of presence that sustains possibility while postponing the present. The other remains there, but only within reach when it suits one’s desire. The bench becomes a psychic device that organizes the timing of demand and offer, measures the distance needed to make attention profitable, and builds a defense against the anxiety of promise. At times, it even becomes a small stage for gentle cruelty.
A potential partner is “benched” when one maintains, through light touches—sporadic messages, story reactions, emojis, or a casual “Hey, how are you?”—a glimmer of possibility without crossing the threshold of a real meeting or clarifying intentions. In everyday terms, saying “He is benching me” means he keeps me in reserve, messages me just enough that I don’t leave, but never enough for anything to truly start.
Unlike breadcrumbing—remember, the trail of crumbs left to keep someone on edge—benching involves a more deliberate intention: maintaining a relational reservoir, a kind of bank of options. It aligns seamlessly with the architecture of digital platforms, with multiple profiles, persistent chats, a fluid calendar, and connections put on standby.
In On Narcissism: An Introduction, Freud describes the oscillation between love for another and self-love. Benching maximizes narcissistic return at minimal cost. The object held on standby reflects an imaginary value — “I have influence,” “I can please,” “I am potentially chosen” — without exposing the subject to the symbolic castration of commitment. Every small sign received, whether a “seen” status, a like, or a casual “how are you?”, reinforces the Other’s confirmation: “You still matter.” This process keeps the object at a protective distance.
When he is too close, he insists; when too distant, he fades. The bencher calibrates the libidinal flow with small doses of presence to prevent the other from withdrawing, and brief withdrawals to guard against dependence. He instrumentalizes ambivalence as a relational tool.
Lacan helps us see how the bencher plays with the experience of lack. He offers a trace of the object—a notification—without the actual presence. He sparks the gaze (scopic drive through stories) and the voice (calling drive through short audio messages), only to pull them back into postponement. Paradoxically, “not giving in to one’s desire” means never fully expressing it, keeping it just out of reach.
For Winnicott, there is a distinction between “relating to” and “using.” An object is only truly “used” once it has been experienced as external, resistant, and able to withstand attacks. Benching bypasses this process, treating the other as virtual and never fully encountered as an autonomous being. They remain “potential,” like a digital transitional object. They are expected to soothe anxiety—present within ping’s reach—without facing the reality test of a meeting, shared time, or conflict. Play is replaced by tease. Benching produces a series of jolting effects through follow-ups that lead nowhere or invitations that are left unfinished.
The cruelty is subtle and repeated, which makes it effective. Benching keeps the fantasy alive: as long as nothing actually happens, everything remains possible. One stays on the side of the imaginary, avoiding the reality of difference—disagreement, doubt—and the symbolic weight of commitment. An infinitely stretchable “as if” replaces real encounters. In this way, the fantasy becomes tyrannical, because the other seems all the more valuable for remaining out of reach.
One could argue that benching provides an anxiolytic sense of security, easing the stress of being left without an emotional response. In a way, it acts as a kind of illusory relational insurance. Yet this comes at the cost of diluting desire. Over time, it fosters a quiet cynicism— “Why choose?”—which often masks an unwillingness to face loss. Looking further, benching can be seen to replay childhood scenarios: being sidelined by a distracted parent, anxiously watching for the slightest sign of attention, keeping score of the signals of a failing love.
Benching is the art of teasing the other’s desire without venturing into one’s own. It thrives where freedom is confused with the absence of choice, restraint with indecision, and tact with postponement. By revealing its narcissistic gains, defenses against anxiety, and micro traumas, psychoanalysis does not tell us what is “right”; it calls us to act with authenticity.
The bench, at its core, is not a piece of furniture, but a stage. One can escape it through affirmation, through clarity, instead of lingering in the delight of uncertainty. Eroticism may lose some of its shine, but desire gains its chance, the chance for a genuine encounter, for true otherness, and for shared time. Between a fantasy and endlessly prolonged disappointment, emotional maturity sometimes chooses a disappointment that is consciously embraced, not out of giving up, but out of love for what truly happens.
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