From Taboo to Trend: How Modern Dating Culture Has Normalised Non-Monogamy

Image Credit: Candida.Performa via Flickr

With Valentine’s Day less than a month away, heart-shaped cushions, pink polka-dot table cloths, and naughty innuendo chocolates are lining the shelves of our favourite high street stores. What’s noticeably missing, however, are actual couples. As Chanté Joseph closed out 2025 by declaring boyfriends officially embarrassing, the annual influx of independent women planning their Galentine’s drinks and self-love bouquets comes as no surprise. What does raise an eyebrow (at the risk of sounding a little prudish) is the number of people who now openly admit to be currently deciding which of their collection of situationships, talking stages, and regular hook-ups will be the lucky winner of a V-Day date this year. 

Gone are the days of courtship, meet-cutes, and love at first sight. This generation prefers to keep its options open. In the life of a Gen Z-er, where love interests are endlessly ‘swipeable’, partners can feel temporary and disposable. Perhaps this shift in attitudes surrounding monogamy is due to the current online dating scene. With one in ten UK adults using services such as Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge (as of 2024), the internet has become the default place to find a partner. The problem being, of course, that in a sea of ‘thirst trap’ photos, deceptive bios, and aggressively specific filters (I’m looking at you, “6’0 and above only” girlies), you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince - or Princess - Charming. 

That’s not to say that a non-monogamous lifestyle can’t be practiced with a clear conscience. Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM) offers an alternative to the constraints of nuclear families and marital fidelity, prioritising openness, honesty, and mutual respect. With adultery cited as the most common reason for divorce in the UK, it’s tempting (and perhaps not unreasoned) to conclude that humans simply aren’t wired for sexual exclusivity. Advocates of ENM argue that engaging in multiple romantic connections is a way of fulfilling all of your needs: the person who aligns with you emotionally may not satisfy you sexually, and the person who offers passion may not provide long-term stability.

Where today’s ‘situationship’ culture starkly differs from ENM, however, is in its focus on short-term gain. Rather than intentionally curating our relationships to meet our long-term needs, we approach dating like a takeaway menu; picking whatever looks good in the moment as if deciding what we fancy for dinner tonight. In his 2003 book, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman links this desire for instant gratification in romantic relationships to consumer culture. When commodities are disposable, temporary, and replaceable, it’s hardly surprising that we begin to treat people the same way. 

So perhaps, in this window-shopping world of online dating, the problem isn’t that no one “ticks all our boxes”- it’s that we’re treating relationships like that heart-shaped cushion, a temporary bedfiller, easily discarded once it’s no longer seasonal. This Valentine’s Day, instead of agonising over who deserves your limited-edition affection, consider doing something truly radical: commit to curiosity. Ask someone out without a backup plan, overlook their questionable Hinge prompts and imaginary height, and resist the urge to keep one foot out the door. Worst case scenario, you waste an evening. Best case? You prove that romance isn’t dead - it’s just been ghosted.