What Is Shrekking and What’s the Psychology Behind it?

Have you heard of the term “shrekking“? Yes, named after the beloved ogre Shrek, this recently popularized dating term has spread across the Internet to amusement and bewilderment – but it describes a dating behavior that is actually long-established.

In short, shrekking is dating someone you perceive to be beneath your usual standards assuming this means they’ll treat you well. “Getting shrekked” is what happens when the partner you perceive to be below you treats you poorly anyway.

Although it sounds unserious, shrekking and getting shrekked go deeper than surface-level jokes. In this article, we’ll explain in more depth what shrekking is, explore the psychology behind shrekking and dating down, and how it relates to your attachment style.

What Is Shrekking in Dating?

Shrekking is dating someone you perceive as less attractive or desirable than you, assuming that the desirability gap guarantees they’ll treat you better. Following on from this, getting shrekked is when this doesn’t work and the person you’re dating doesn’t meet your expectations anyway.

This isn’t the same as just dating someone who isn’t your usual type – the key to shrekking is the intention to look for someone below you with the aim to experience better treatment.

Shrekking vs. Dating Down: Are They the Same Thing?

“Dating down” describes a similar idea about dating someone you or others might perceive to be less desirable than you. However, it doesn’t necessarily carry the same intention as shrekking – it might simply be reflective of an openness to dating people from other backgrounds or with different personality traits.

The problem with shrekking is that it is based on assumptions: you assume your partner doesn’t feel equal to you, assume they’ll work harder to keep you, and assume they’ll treat you better as a result. Soon, we’ll explore how the science doesn’t actually support these assumptions; and how your actions might be the reason your partner lets you down.

So, why are we still shrekking just to get shrekked?

Why Do People Shrek?

One suggested reason we might be shrekking is the fear of being single. Researchers have found that the greater our fear of being single, the more likely we are to settle for a partner we perceive as less attractive and less responsive.¹ Even when participants weren’t consciously aware of this, or didn’t admit to it, their romantic interest in a laboratory setting and during a speed-dating event was less selective when their fear of being single was higher.

However, people who are intentionally engaging in shrekking fear more than just being single – they describe fearing being treated poorly in a relationship, hence the belief that someone “below them” will treat them better.

Perhaps it makes sense that we might “shrek” when we have an insecure attachment style. Attachment security tells us that we’re deserving of love and positive treatment unconditionally, so if we don’t believe that about ourselves, we might look for people we think we deserve love from – people we think should look up to us or put us on a pedestal. We’ll explore how your attachment style might feed into shrekking in more detail coming up.

What the Research Says About Shrekking

According to psychological studies, no, dating down doesn’t generally lead to better treatment or a better relationship. Partners who perceive that their partners score higher than they do in valuable traits, like appearance, sociability, and resourcefulness, typically have higher relationship satisfaction, and people tend to be happier when they’re about equal.²

Another study found that partners who perceive their partners to be less desirable than they are make less effort to increase their partner’s relationship satisfaction.³ We tend to reciprocate what we receive from others, so this is one possible explanation for why shrekking doesn’t actually work: if you’re putting less effort into the relationship, it’s reasonable to expect less from your partner, not more.

This study also found that partners who may be on the receiving end of shrekking, who perceive that their partner could easily replace them while they couldn’t easily replace their partner, both make more effort to improve their partner’s relationship satisfaction and engage in efforts to lower a partner’s self-esteem so that they’re less likely to pursue other relationships.

We can call these positive and negative partner retention strategies – positive partner retention strategies aim to keep someone around by making them happy, while negative partner retention strategies aim to keep someone around by making them feel like they have no other options. As we might expect, these negative partner retention strategies decrease relationship satisfaction, which might explain why we tend to be happier when we perceive that we’re roughly equal.⁴

So, the reason people you’re “shrekking” are not treating you the way you expect might be twofold:

1. You make less effort to sustain the relationship, and they reciprocate.
2. Lowering your self-esteem can help them to feel like the relationship is stable, especially if efforts to improve your relationship satisfaction don’t seem to work.

Shrekking and Attachment Styles

Based on what we know about attachment styles, we might be able to theorize about how your attachment style might relate to shrekking behavior.

Shrekking and Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment Style

If you have an anxious-preoccupied attachment style, a fear of abandonment might drive you to engage in shrekking – you might think, “if they’re less desirable than I am, they won’t leave me.” If your partner engages in both positive and negative partner retention strategies as a result, you might be more prone to developing low self-esteem and a sense of dependence on your partner’s attention.

At the same time, if you have high attachment anxiety you might be more likely to be on the receiving end of someone else’s shrekking. You can see others through rose-tinted glasses, so you might assume the best intentions of your partner. If they don’t put a lot of effort into your relationship, this might drive you to seek more attention from them instead of evaluating the way they treat you.

Shrekking and Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment Style

If you have a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, you might engage in shrekking as a way to maintain emotional distance in the relationship – your priority might be ease or being treated a certain way, rather than forming a strong connection. You might think, “if they’re not as desirable as me, I can easily replace them and it won’t matter that much when we break up”. Both positive and negative partner retention strategies might push you away, so you might be quick to end the relationship.

You might be less likely to be on the receiving end of shrekking – you generally have a positive view of yourself but a negative view of others, so you might not trust readily and you may question someone’s intentions.

Shrekking and Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style

If you have the fearful-avoidant attachment style, you tend to be the least trusting of relationships and lowest in self-esteem because you have a negative view of yourself and of others. You might be the most prone to other people’s shrekking, and may tolerate a lack of effort from your partner more easily even though it makes you feel upset.

If you find that you’re the one shrekking, this might be due to a fear of abandonment or as a way to maintain emotional distance. However, you might be least likely to perceive others as less desirable than you in the first place.

Shrekking and Secure Attachment Style

If you have attachment security, you likely feel safe and confident enough in your relationships that you don’t feel the need to engage in shrekking. You likely don’t have a fear of being single, so you’re less likely to settle and don’t feel the need to find someone less desirable in order to be treated well; you believe that you deserve to be treated well anyway.

You can also find it easier to recognize and walk away from relationships that don’t feel healthy. If you pick up on a lack of effort from your partner or think they might be shrekking you, you might try to resolve this with direct communication instead of distance or heightened contact.

The Problem with Shrekking and What to Do Instead

Shrekking relationships probably ultimately fail because they’re not built on mutual respect, trust, and compatibility. The assumption that you’re more desirable than your partner, and that they see it that way too, is an unstable foundation to build a genuine relationship on.

Further, the research shows that shrekking can actually make you and your partner less likely to treat each other well. Although it is good to care about how your partner treats you, this should be based on their observable personality traits and actual behavior towards you, rather than social desirability.

It also isn’t the only thing that matters in a relationship – how you treat your partner and how well you work together as a team are also important. Different people have different values, so you might also find other relationship factors important, but science suggests we feel happiest in relationships where we both feel roughly equal, even if we might bring different things to the table.²

Conclusion

Shrekking is a recent dating term, but not a recent behavior – dating down in the hopes it will make your partner treat you better is a persistent behavior, even though countless personal stories and psychological research show that it doesn’t actually work.

If you have an insecure attachment style, you might be more likely to be on either side of shrekking behavior. Working on attachment security can help you to deal with the feelings that might lead to shrekking, as well as the conversations you need to have when your partner might be shrekking you.

Do you know your attachment style? Take our free attachment quiz now to find out.

FAQs About Shrekking

What is the Shrek dating theory?

Shrekking is when we date someone we perceive as less desirable than we are under the assumption that they will treat us better.

Is shrekking the same as dating down?

Shrekking involves dating down, but dating down isn’t always shrekking; the difference is in the intention. “Dating down” might just be a sign that someone is open to people who aren’t their usual type or values things other than social desirability, while shrekking involves the specific intention to date someone less socially desirable in search of better treatment.

Does dating someone less attractive mean they’ll treat you better?

Dating someone less attractive does not mean they’ll treat you better. Research shows they might actually treat you worse, because they might engage in negative partner retention strategies – behaviors meant to lower your self-esteem to make you feel like you have fewer options. At the same time, you might engage in fewer positive partner retention strategies (behaviors meant to improve your partner’s relationship satisfaction), and they’re likely to reciprocate your energy.

Is shrekking toxic?

Shrekking could be considered a toxic dating behavior – it prioritizes a power imbalance and social desirability over building a trusting, mutually respectful relationship.

Can shrekking ever work?

Shrekking is unlikely to work in the long term. Studies suggest that the highest relationship satisfaction comes from relationships where we perceive ourselves to be a little less socially desirable than our partners, but roughly equal.

References

1. Spielmann SS, MacDonald G, Maxwell JA, Joel S, Peragine D, Muise A, Impett EA. Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2013 Dec;105(6):1049.
2. Mehmetoglu M, Määttänen I, Mittner M. The Link Between Mate Value Discrepancy and Relationship Satisfaction—An Empirical Examination Using Response Surface Analysis. Behavioral Sciences. 2025 Aug 20;15(8):1131.
3. Sela Y, Mogilski JK, Shackelford TK, Zeigler‐Hill V, Fink B. Mate value discrepancy and mate retention behaviors of self and partner. Journal of Personality. 2017 Oct;85(5):730-40.
4. Babaeizad A, Fallahchai R, Abbasnejad T. Mate-value and relationship satisfaction: The moderating roles of mate retention behaviors. Plos one. 2022 Jan 18;17(1):e0262154.