Your Guide To The Canon-Bailing Dating Trend

TikTok has a name for almost every relatable experience you can imagine, and the "canon event" trend is no different. If you haven't seen the term pop up in your For You Page, canon events are those pivotal moments in life that start out bad but ultimately set you on a better path. In essence, they're the events that spark growth and help build character.

Unsurprisingly, canon events can majorly shape your love life — and, in some cases, encourage you to ditch dating to work on yourself independently. Enter "canon-bailing," an offshoot of the "canon event" concept and a dating trend to watch, according to Plenty of Fish. The dating app coined the term, defining it as the act of "cultivating your identity outside of a relationship." However, canon-bailing isn't just basic self-care — it's a commitment to your personal goals and self-development, even if it means saying sayonara to romance for a while. Sometimes, a canon event serves up a flash of inspiration so big, you simply don't have the energy for flirty DMs and stressful first dates. When that happens, canon-bailing can help you turn your attention back on the person who matters most in your life: you.

Focusing on your own identity is always a smart move, whether you're grieving a breakup or stepping away from serial monogamy. That might explain why 32% of singles know someone who has canon-bailed, according to a survey conducted by Plenty of Fish.

However, expect to run into even more canon-bailers in 2024, when the trend is likely to take off. "Singles today are totally tapped into the virality of living at the intersection of social media and pop culture, so it's no surprise that 'rizz' and 'canon' are leading next year's dating trends," Resident Dating Expert at Plenty of Fish Eva Gallagher explained in a PR Newswire press release. In other words, the more we talk about canon events on TikTok, the more those ideas influence our real-life habits and encourage us to shake up our dating decisions.

You can also think of canon-bailing as the romantic version of other self-care-adjacent trends that have blown up recently, like quiet-quitting and dopamine detoxes. Turning off your dating apps, giving up on dead-end crushes, and focusing on yourself might just be the next phase in your personal growth journey.

If you've prioritized relationships and lost sight of yourself in the process, canon-bailing might be worth a try. And don't worry — pressing pause on dating will likely help your love life more than harm it. "Having a sense of self is vital to our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. It becomes our internal compass for every interaction with others," holistic psychotherapist Sonia Fregoso, LMFT, revealed to MindBodyGreen. "Your sense of self tells you what boundaries you need to place with others and [how to] make decisions that will serve you."

Of course, you don't have to be single to develop a sense of self, but spending more time alone can help you identify your needs, without noise or external pressure from a partnership. To get started, choose just one habit or goal you'd like to accomplish, rather than taking on a whole list of self-improvement tasks. "Sometimes when we set out to better ourselves, we tend to want to do everything at once," licensed mental health counselor Micheline Maalouf revealed to Cosmopolitan. "Oftentimes, this can overwhelm and lead to giving up on ourselves." Remember, embrace baby steps during your canon-bailing era.

If you're not sure what to focus on, the experts at Healthline suggest defining your personal values, such as honesty, adventure, or generosity. Then, when you're ready to jump back into the dating pool, keep these values in mind when choosing partners and deciding how to show up on dates.