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Star Trek-themed polyamory? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it...

Fancy a six-week ‘marriage sabbatical’? Or how about ethical non-monogamy? Now is the perfect time to reinvent your relationship, says Franki Cookney

Wednesday 17 January 2024 14:02 GMT

Franki Cookney explains why 2024 is the year we stop letting other people tell us what it means to be in a relationship (Shutterstock/Willrow Hood)

For the past year I feel like all we’ve talked about, all anyone’s asked us about, is if and when we’re going to move in together,” my friend Holly* tells me. “And at some point, we sat down and went, ‘Wait a minute... do either of us actually want to live together?’”

Holly and her boyfriend are in their thirties and have been dating for a few years, so moving in together seemed like the obvious next step. But they realised that, rather than being something to look forward to, it had become a source of anxiety. “We were stressing ourselves out about when we ‘should’ move in together, and actually, we’re happy living apart.” Instead, the couple have decided to find other ways to show commitment, including spending more time together, planning more trips, and consciously talking about the future as something they plan to share.

As we inch into the mid-2020s, experts reckon we’ll be seeing more of this kind of attitude. According to sexual wellness brand Lovehoney, people are thinking outside the box; they are consciously shifting their dating strategy to prioritise their own goals, personal growth, and opportunities for self-discovery.

We can expect to see people ditching the “all or nothing” attitude when it comes to dating and embracing fluidity in their relationships. This might mean reflecting on what traditionally “comes next” in a relationship, and deciding to do it differently.

It might mean ending the romantic or sexual part of your relationship but staying in each other’s lives. It might mean taking a break from a relationship, as friends of mine did when, shortly after they got married, one of them was relocated to Hong Kong by his company. His husband did not want to move to Hong Kong. He had friends, a job, and a life here in the UK. So they decided to hit pause for the duration of the contract. They kept in touch, of course, and visited one another, but they also got on with their lives, dated other people – and then, when they were finally back in the same country, they slowly picked up their marriage again. As far as I know, they’re still going strong.

For some people, fluidity might mean experimenting with different structures, such as ethical non-monogamy, or choosing to have kids with platonic friends. Queer people have long been doing this, or versions of it, of course. But the growing popularity of events such as the Queer Platonic Co-Parenting meetup shows that interest in doing things differently now extends outside the LGBT+ community. Instead of focusing on finding “the one”, people are opening up to the idea that several different people can be right for different parts of our lives.

I’m reminded of a friend who had, in his words, a “Star Trek f*** buddy”. When I asked him how he’d alighted on such a serendipitous arrangement, he told me that they’d started out dating. As major nerds, they’d naturally hit it off, but it soon became clear that they had little in common besides an unconditional love for Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Oh, and the sex wasn’t bad.

So, rather than sack it off altogether, they developed a cosy relationship where they get together every couple of months, watch a few episodes of the show, and, well... “engage”. Both were free to date other people and pursue other relationships, but they figured, why waste what they had just because it didn’t tick all the boxes?

I have also noticed an increasing number of friends and colleagues starting to question social norms around romantic relationships. Having dinner with a friend recently, she confessed she was seeing two people at once, but – and this is the part that amazed her – openly and consensually. “All my life I’ve felt like I was weird because I didn’t want to ‘settle down’ with one person. But I don’t just want to have casual sex. I want love! I just don’t want all the other stuff.”

These kinds of conversations are not unusual to me. For a long time I put this down to being a sympathetic ear. People who know me know that they can come to me with their relationship thoughts and feelings, and that I’ll be open to hearing and talking about their ideas, no matter how radical. But I, too, am beginning to sense that the shift is cultural.

In 2022, writer Celia Walden described her six-week “marriage sabbatical” from Piers Morgan (insert your own joke about being married to Piers Morgan here). Like a computer that’s started lagging, she wrote, you sometimes need to “switch it off at the mains and restart”.

A few months ago, I wrote in this very column about a couple who realised that the best way for them to continue their co-parenting relationship (and friendship) was to get divorced. And just the other week, my friend and fellow journalist Nicola Slawson wrote about her journey to having a baby with her gay best friend.

With small kids at home, I don’t think taking “six weeks off” is on the cards for me any time soon. But I’m excited, nonetheless, by this shift. As a society, we are looking at the conventional wisdom on how we’re “supposed to” do things, and wondering whether there might be a better way.