A name for people who don't adhere to the relationship escalator?
March 21, 2015 4:42 PM Subscribe
Is there a name for a subculture of people who do not adhere to the relationship escalator but are not strictly LGBTQ or polyamorous?
This is a little hard to get at in words, so bear with me. To get what I'm trying to describe, take the "how a relationship should proceed" part of heteronormativity (you go on a few dates, then decide you are "a couple", then present as a couple, followed by cohabitation, engagement, marriage, etc.) and imagine someone who does not participate in or want to participate in these traditions. They may have relationships, but they wouldn't adhere to this standard progression which is normally assumed to be how a sexual relationship proceeds.
In other words, if a person (straight, gay, or of any other orientation or identity) does not intend to marry or raise children in a traditional cohabiting partnership where it is assumed the relationship will continue indefinitely, is there a group that they fall under by definition? I don't necessarily mean a polyamorous/open relationship (though this is possible), but rather just a relationship where there is no expectation of indefinite partnership, and no cohabitation or shared finances. Is there a word like "polyamorous" to describe such a person, which would capture what/who they are?
This is a little hard to get at in words, so bear with me. To get what I'm trying to describe, take the "how a relationship should proceed" part of heteronormativity (you go on a few dates, then decide you are "a couple", then present as a couple, followed by cohabitation, engagement, marriage, etc.) and imagine someone who does not participate in or want to participate in these traditions. They may have relationships, but they wouldn't adhere to this standard progression which is normally assumed to be how a sexual relationship proceeds.
In other words, if a person (straight, gay, or of any other orientation or identity) does not intend to marry or raise children in a traditional cohabiting partnership where it is assumed the relationship will continue indefinitely, is there a group that they fall under by definition? I don't necessarily mean a polyamorous/open relationship (though this is possible), but rather just a relationship where there is no expectation of indefinite partnership, and no cohabitation or shared finances. Is there a word like "polyamorous" to describe such a person, which would capture what/who they are?
"Committed bachelor" is a term that was once a euphemism for a closeted gay man, but also means a man who dates without any intention of or interest in getting married.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:46 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:46 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Part of this is going to depend on exactly where on the escalator the individual or couple steps off. After one or two dates? After sleeping together? Moving in? Or are you talking about a relationship skipping around and, say, having children without being married, or moving in together without becoming monogamous?
It's hard to see what you're trying to name because you haven't described the exact behaviors you have in mind, just the ones you don't have in mind, and there's a whole range of possibilities.
posted by Andrhia at 4:56 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's hard to see what you're trying to name because you haven't described the exact behaviors you have in mind, just the ones you don't have in mind, and there's a whole range of possibilities.
posted by Andrhia at 4:56 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Some of my friends use the term Relationship Radical.
posted by HermitDog at 4:56 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by HermitDog at 4:56 PM on March 21, 2015
I just call those people, I am one, someone in a non-traditional relationship, since there are many ways to be on a path but tons and tons of ways to be off of the path.
posted by jessamyn at 4:58 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 4:58 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: oxisos's response is pretty close to what I mean. I know this is a vague category, so maybe I'm looking for terms like "living apart together" that violates the tenets of a "normal" relationship to some significant degree.
posted by deathpanels at 5:01 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by deathpanels at 5:01 PM on March 21, 2015
I do wish there were a word for ...I dunno, an overall continued dynanicism; repeating steps 2-5 again and again.
posted by runehog at 5:15 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by runehog at 5:15 PM on March 21, 2015
I have a relative like this and the family usually describe him as a "serial monogamist." He never mingles finances with his girlfriends, and he goes into relationships expecting them to last no more than about five years. Sometimes they live together, sometimes not. When I was younger, his female companions were introduced to me as "Joe's friend" when they didn't live together, and "Joe's girlfriend" when they did (this was in the 80s, cohabiting wasn't as common yet and not as much talked about in front of kids), I think to emphasize to us children the temporary nature of his relationships (i.e., that this person coming to family events wasn't ever going to be my aunt, even though nobody else brought dates to family events unless they were on that relationship escalator pretty seriously).
My grandparents' generation (my great aunts and great uncles, etc) sometimes called him "Peter Pan" or "the eternal boy" because he wouldn't "settle down" and get married, but I haven't heard that in probably 20 years, probably from a combination of him passing the age of 40 and him being a productive member of society generally.
I think there are a variety of forms of not being on the normal escalator, but there's one for you.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
My grandparents' generation (my great aunts and great uncles, etc) sometimes called him "Peter Pan" or "the eternal boy" because he wouldn't "settle down" and get married, but I haven't heard that in probably 20 years, probably from a combination of him passing the age of 40 and him being a productive member of society generally.
I think there are a variety of forms of not being on the normal escalator, but there's one for you.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't feel like there's any one salient subculture or label of people who don't choose to participate on the escalator as a whole. However, there are definitely groups of people who ride the escalator and get off a few steps in and do their own thing: e.g. ethical non-monogamy/polyamory, LDRs, childfrees, etc. I also feel like the beginning of the escalator dramatically oversimplifies how these relationships form; I know a lot of people who wouldn't even consider dating someone with whom they weren't friends to begin with, so that escalator definitely needs a step 0.
posted by un petit cadeau at 5:45 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by un petit cadeau at 5:45 PM on March 21, 2015
You might be interested in Sarah Mirk's book Sex from Scratch, which discusses many different styles of non-traditional relationships, and specifically doesn't focus on polyamory.
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:25 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:25 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
You are a confirmed bachelor, as in a man that will likely never marry, though George Clooney has now had his membership revoked from your club. I'm a spinster or old maid, but the modern new kind who got married then divorced first to make sure that this was really best for her personality type.
Once we're done firmly establishing ourselves as a deviant counterculture we can think of better names that aren't super sexist.
posted by mibo at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Once we're done firmly establishing ourselves as a deviant counterculture we can think of better names that aren't super sexist.
posted by mibo at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
I refer to us as happily unmarried.
posted by Dashy at 7:04 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 7:04 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
I consider myself permanently single.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:19 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:19 PM on March 21, 2015
With respect to personal identities of people who want these relationships... you may find the word "aromantic" or the associated community useful to you. Or you might not; I have pretty much zero experience with the aromantic community these days as it's branched off from the asexual community into its own thing. But that is certainly a group of people who are questioning what romance is, what steps people "should" take in relationships, whether permanent committed relationships are a thing everyone wants/they want, etc. I might point you here as a starting step. You might also look at this post for a more critical take on aromantic discourse, although it's probably pretty heavy on the in-community jargon.
Do feel free to MeMail me about either of those communities if you are interested and I will do my best to point you at stuff which is particularly useful to you. I find this stuff all pretty complicated for myself and am cheerfully agnostic on what the hell defines a relationship as romantic these days, but I think I can still figure out where to find people who are interested in discussing that and point you at them if I have more of an idea of what you're looking for. If you're interested in that, anyway; this is definitely... I have always found there to be a lot of parallels in this community with polyamory--the term "relationship anarchy" appears to be popular in both places these days--but with a bit less of an emphasis on maintaining multiple relationships at once and a bit more navel-gazing about what operationally defines particular kinds of relationships.
Oh, and look up relationship anarchy. It might really appeal to you.
posted by sciatrix at 7:25 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Do feel free to MeMail me about either of those communities if you are interested and I will do my best to point you at stuff which is particularly useful to you. I find this stuff all pretty complicated for myself and am cheerfully agnostic on what the hell defines a relationship as romantic these days, but I think I can still figure out where to find people who are interested in discussing that and point you at them if I have more of an idea of what you're looking for. If you're interested in that, anyway; this is definitely... I have always found there to be a lot of parallels in this community with polyamory--the term "relationship anarchy" appears to be popular in both places these days--but with a bit less of an emphasis on maintaining multiple relationships at once and a bit more navel-gazing about what operationally defines particular kinds of relationships.
Oh, and look up relationship anarchy. It might really appeal to you.
posted by sciatrix at 7:25 PM on March 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Relationship anarchy?
On preview, what sciatrix said.
posted by mattbcoset at 7:30 PM on March 21, 2015
On preview, what sciatrix said.
posted by mattbcoset at 7:30 PM on March 21, 2015
Traditionally you would call men like this "playboys". More recently and less flatteringly "commitmentphobes." I don't think that there's a common-parlance expression for women who voluntarily avoided the last step.
posted by MattD at 7:35 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 7:35 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
*makes a face* I'd also like to point out that The Thinking Asexual frequently bugs me about the way they frame things, which is... hm, a bit "aromantic relationships are inherently superior to romantic ones" at times. Like, there is interesting stuff out there, but that blog in particular while being very very prolific is also relatively notorious for upsetting a lot of people by apparently accidentally insulting other people's types of relationships--sometimes normative ones, sometimes not. Just a heads up there. Marie does have some interesting things to say, but I have more or less stopped paying attention because I got seriously annoyed one too many times reading their work.
You are welcome to take that with an enormous grain of rock salt if you want, though; this is personal-interaction-level stuff that goes back a few years and goodness knows interpersonal conflict is, well, interpersonal. I just wanted to toss it out there.
posted by sciatrix at 7:40 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
You are welcome to take that with an enormous grain of rock salt if you want, though; this is personal-interaction-level stuff that goes back a few years and goodness knows interpersonal conflict is, well, interpersonal. I just wanted to toss it out there.
posted by sciatrix at 7:40 PM on March 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I do a version of this, and except for the one time always have. I am very definitely not aromantic, nor do I think of myself as an anarchist or a commitment-phobe. I'll happily commit until it stops being a good idea to be in the relationship, which I think of more as rational than anything else. It never occurred to me that it needed a name. Are you looking for one in order to find some sort of community?
posted by Because at 3:35 AM on March 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Because at 3:35 AM on March 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Yes, partly I am looking for a word/label to find a community, but partly because there is comfort and power in saying "I am X" instead of having this vague sense that you're different from most people in a way that is invisible to the world.
posted by deathpanels at 8:23 AM on March 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by deathpanels at 8:23 AM on March 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Some words that came to mind for me:
Player
Hippy
Free Spirit
(Also, I know someone who rudely referred to someone else's relationships as "the bimbo of the quarter.")
But, given that the divorce rate hovers around 50%, I don't know that you are all that different from other people. So I am thinking that if it were me, I might try to describe what you are describing by saying "I like to think of myself as a realist (or perhaps skeptic)." I mean, this expectation that THIS is how relationships go doesn't really fit how they actually typically go.
Every generation keeps trying to come up with new words for describing "non-standard" relationships, those that don't fit the societal expectations for x, y or z. We now have the new-ish term Friends with Benefits. But music, literature and history are rife with expressions for two people seeing each other kind of on the sly (for sex) in spite of lacking societal approval, either because they are married to someone else or unmarried or gay or whatever.
Working out a relationship that really works is very hard. Most of them actually fail to fit the mold and the affairs and dramas and misery and what not are mostly kept hidden away as much as possible so that people can APPEAR a certain way in the eyes of the public.
That isn't to dismiss your desire to find a community or an identity. But if you are male, I would be inclined to say your skepticism and aversion to being tied down is incredibly normal. It's only relatively recently that women have sufficient access to good birth control and the like for women to be more able to be similarly skeptical and averse to being tied down. Under circumstances where sex is practically guaranteed to lead to babies, women have strong personal motivation for wanting to make sure they don't get knocked up and abandoned. So they seek commitment. But men have a long history of not wanting to be tied down. That's really quite prosaic.
posted by Michele in California at 3:16 PM on March 22, 2015
Player
Hippy
Free Spirit
(Also, I know someone who rudely referred to someone else's relationships as "the bimbo of the quarter.")
But, given that the divorce rate hovers around 50%, I don't know that you are all that different from other people. So I am thinking that if it were me, I might try to describe what you are describing by saying "I like to think of myself as a realist (or perhaps skeptic)." I mean, this expectation that THIS is how relationships go doesn't really fit how they actually typically go.
Every generation keeps trying to come up with new words for describing "non-standard" relationships, those that don't fit the societal expectations for x, y or z. We now have the new-ish term Friends with Benefits. But music, literature and history are rife with expressions for two people seeing each other kind of on the sly (for sex) in spite of lacking societal approval, either because they are married to someone else or unmarried or gay or whatever.
Working out a relationship that really works is very hard. Most of them actually fail to fit the mold and the affairs and dramas and misery and what not are mostly kept hidden away as much as possible so that people can APPEAR a certain way in the eyes of the public.
That isn't to dismiss your desire to find a community or an identity. But if you are male, I would be inclined to say your skepticism and aversion to being tied down is incredibly normal. It's only relatively recently that women have sufficient access to good birth control and the like for women to be more able to be similarly skeptical and averse to being tied down. Under circumstances where sex is practically guaranteed to lead to babies, women have strong personal motivation for wanting to make sure they don't get knocked up and abandoned. So they seek commitment. But men have a long history of not wanting to be tied down. That's really quite prosaic.
posted by Michele in California at 3:16 PM on March 22, 2015
The only time I've found it necessary or desirable to put a label on my behavior is when I've been on a dating site -- and then I've used serial monogamist. I had one brief marriage at 22 , and thereafter it has been a series of hopeful but short shelf life relationships -- apart from a 12 year live-together relationship which in retrospect I would have done well to bail on sooner, my mistake. For that one, family and friends referred to us as "long time companions" in various announcements (printed family histories, party announcements, listings in family obits) because we intended to be together forever. So much for that!
Mostly I last about 11 to 12 months until the "shine" wears off for me. It's very predictable. I like my own space. I am currently at 18 months and counting and things are getting ... tense. I genuinely think some people are not meant for that lifetime thing. Never heard it called "relationship escalator" prior to this post, interesting.
Anyway I don't feel the need to define myself or defend my behavior -- but when asked, and oddly, some folks do, serial monogamist would come closest to what I've been doing for 40+ years. If it matters, I am a hetero female, childless and ... happy.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 9:45 PM on March 22, 2015
Mostly I last about 11 to 12 months until the "shine" wears off for me. It's very predictable. I like my own space. I am currently at 18 months and counting and things are getting ... tense. I genuinely think some people are not meant for that lifetime thing. Never heard it called "relationship escalator" prior to this post, interesting.
Anyway I don't feel the need to define myself or defend my behavior -- but when asked, and oddly, some folks do, serial monogamist would come closest to what I've been doing for 40+ years. If it matters, I am a hetero female, childless and ... happy.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 9:45 PM on March 22, 2015
Thinking ... I wonder if this book would be helpful in naming relationships that do not go to the middle or top of the elevator, but are still valuable in and of themselves: Brief Encounters, How To Make the Most of Relationships That May Not Last Forever. Authors are Emily Coleman and Betty Edwards.
This book has been helpful to me on the rare occasions when I am wondering what I am doing, particularly after being "grilled" at family gatherings about the state of my love life, why I'm not married yet, or why I don't have children (though, thankfully, questions about the state of that ship have sailed).
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:55 PM on March 22, 2015
This book has been helpful to me on the rare occasions when I am wondering what I am doing, particularly after being "grilled" at family gatherings about the state of my love life, why I'm not married yet, or why I don't have children (though, thankfully, questions about the state of that ship have sailed).
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:55 PM on March 22, 2015
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posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:44 PM on March 21, 2015 [6 favorites]