R
The Reflection Method

Hoovering test: are they pulling you back?

Ten statements about the contact you've had since the breakup or discard. It takes about two minutes, stays on your device, and is exploratory — not a diagnosis or an assessment of another person.

Hoovering self-check questions

0 of 10 answered

  1. 1. They reach out again just as I start to feel steadier or less in touch.
  2. 2. Contact arrives around anniversaries, holidays, or after I post something that suggests I'm moving on.
  3. 3. This has happened before: they go quiet, then come back with a similar message.
  4. 4. The message is an apology that's warmer and more specific than anything I got while we were together.
  5. 5. They contact me about a crisis, an emergency, or their health.
  6. 6. They use a low-stakes excuse to reopen the thread — a shared item, a form, a question they could answer themselves.
  7. 7. Messages come through other people: a friend, a relative, or a new partner checking in on their behalf.
  8. 8. Their contact makes me feel urgency — reply now, decide today, meet tonight.
  9. 9. After they reach out, I lose days to rereading messages or replaying the relationship.
  10. 10. Any changed behaviour has continued for months, with a visible cost to them, even when I don't respond.

What this test is looking at

Hoovering is contact whose function is suction rather than repair: reopening the channel after distance has started to work. The questions group into four things — whether the contact repeats and tracks your stability, which openers it uses, how much it pulls at you afterwards, and whether any changed behaviour has actually held over months.

For the full explanation of each hoover type and how to write a response policy before the next message arrives, read the hoovering guide.