Gen Z ditches traditional dating rules to not just ‘go through the motions'
Dating's latest trend? Total anarchy — and not in the punk rock way.
A new report from the sex-positive app Feeld and educator Ruby Rare found that a growing number of Gen Zers are opting out of traditional relationship models and instead diving into something called 'relationship anarchy' — and one in five may be practicing it without even realizing.
Coined in 2006 by Swedish writer Andie Nordgren, relationship anarchy — or RA — is a radical, anti-hierarchical, anti-capitalist take on love and connection.
As Nordgren noted in her manifesto, it 'questions the idea that love is a limited resource that can only be real if restricted to a couple.'
In other words, why should romance get top billing when your BFF, roommate or creative collaborator might fulfill your soul more than a spouse?
'It's a relationship style that is founded on politically anarchic principles. It takes being intentional,' Rare explained in the study.
'You have to examine the relationships you currently have in your life, and reflect and deep dive. Are you just going through the motions?'
Feeld's findings show RA devotees report feeling less lonely and more supported — but it's not all communal bliss and pillow talk.
'It's challenging to figure out what your boundaries are,' Rare said. 'But I don't think relationship building should be about shying away from challenge.'
Instead of prioritizing sexual exclusivity or 'Disney fairy-tale romance,' RA promotes mutual care across all connections — romantic or not.
'Everyone is taught the rules at a young age: One person in your life is meant to be your everything,' Sam, a 33-year-old gender-fluid music licensing administrator, told Wired in a recent interview.
People would feel more fulfilled in their relationships 'if they were able to prioritize others based on what they actually wanted versus what they believe is expected of them.'
The goal? Freedom, not perfection.
'A lot of people will tell me, 'Oh, I wish I could be polyamorous or a relationship anarchist, but I just get too jealous,'' Lavvynder said. 'And it's like, well, I get jealous too… It's really f—king hard, actually.'
Still, many say it's worth the mess.
As Rare puts it: 'Human connection is inherently messy. The better we are at embracing that, the better we are at enjoying our lives.'
And for a rising number of romantics, relationship anarchy might just be the escape route.
Polyamory — and its close cousin, relationship anarchy — may not just be about love and liberation. It can also be practical.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
32 minutes ago
- CNN
Wes Anderson on the secrets and struggles behind his impeccably stylish men
Wes Anderson has a message for London's finest tailors: he'd love a Savile Row suit — if someone will give him a discount. 'Hopefully if we put this out there someone will contact me,' he said on a call from New York. '(They're) quite a lot of money, but it will see you out, as they say.' This would be a radical move for the sartorially-minded director. Anderson is loyal to New York tailoring institution Mr. Ned for his custom-made clothes, he said, though has been known to stray to legendary Italian atelier Battistoni when in Rome. But he would be willing to give a London tailor a shot. After all, if they're good enough for his characters, they should be good enough for him. Anderson's latest film, 'The Phoenician Scheme,' is bulging at the seams with suits, some crafted by Taillour Ltd., a bespoke tailoring label in East London, founded by Fred Nieddu and Lee Rekert. The movie centers on 1950s business magnate Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), who wheels and deals his way around a fictionalized Middle Eastern country while fending off assassination attempts. In tow is his heir, a novice nun called Leisl (Mia Threapleton), who's out to save his soul, and bumbling tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera), along for the ride with his employer and his crush. Together they bring an odd thrupple dynamic to what might otherwise have been a series of business meetings with deep-pocketed characters played by Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, and more. A crime caper with a smattering of existential angst, it's the director's most accessible work in a while. It's also, even by Anderson's standards, a showcase for fine tailoring — marking a new high point for the director whose films often feature impeccable menswear. When Anderson was young, he used to play dress up. 'There were so many costumes in movies when I was a child that I tried to imitate,' he shared. How characters presented themselves through their clothes was something he was always conscious of. 'From the first moment of the first short film I made, I thought of that,' Anderson recalled. Making that short film, 'Bottle Rocket' (1993), which Anderson turned into his feature debut in 1996, he remembered debating actor Owen Wilson over a shirt. 'We'd written it together, and he knew exactly how to inhabit this person,' Anderson said. 'But the visual part of the character… I had to sort of coax (Wilson) into something he would never wear.' Five years and a bigger budget later, Anderson was making 'Rushmore' (1998). Jason Schwartzman's character, the preppy student Max Fischer, dresses beyond his years. Anderson, Schwartzman and the film's costume designer Karen Patch commissioned a tailor in the director's native Houston, Texas, to reflect that in the form of a perfectly cut, blue school blazer. 'That's the first time there was a costume that I thought, 'Let's make this from scratch. We can make it exactly, 100% right,'' Anderson said. Then came 'The Royal Tenenbaums' (2001) — also costumed by Patch — whose sartorial ripples continue to spread today. Anderson turned to Mr. Ned for help with tailoring and liked what they came up with. Years later, he sat for an interview with the New York Times wearing the exact jacket worn by Bill Murray in the film, he told the reporter. However you look at it, Anderson never stopped playing dress up — including having his characters wear his inspirations on their sleeves. When conceiving the look for Korda in 'The Phoenician Scheme,' Anderson said he had in mind the businessmen played by Hollywood's Golden Age actors William Powell ('The Thin Man') and Herbert Marshall ('Trouble in Paradise'). Meanwhile, Threapleton's nun was styled in green tights as a twisted nod to the titular Irma, a sex worker played by Shirley MacLaine, in Billy Wilder's 'Irma la Douce' (1963). 'I think it is probably quite a generous gesture by Wes to be so conspicuous with some of his references,' said Adam Woodward, editor-at-large of Little White Lies magazine and author of 'The Worlds of Wes Anderson.' 'That has been the case throughout his career,' Woodward continued, speaking on a video call. 'I think he's adding new layers to that as he continues, and I suppose as he enters this middle period of his career, his work for me feels like it's getting maybe more mature. He's hitting a really interesting groove now.' 'The Phoenician Scheme' saw Anderson reteam with Italian costume designer Milena Canonero, a four-time Oscar winner who has worked on most of his films since 2004's 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.' Theirs is the kind of longstanding collaboration that allows for creative disagreement, which was the case when creating the backbone of 'The Phoenician Scheme's' wardrobe: its suits. 'My suggestion in our script is that all the businessmen wear double-breasted gray chalk stripe (or) pinstripe suits in the classic tycoon look,' Anderson recounted. 'And Milena's suggestion is, 'That's a terrible idea,' and 'Why would we have everyone wearing the same thing? It's been done a thousand times before and it's a cliché.'' But Anderson had his reasons: One being that a good piece of clothing, such as tailoring, takes on a protective quality. 'If you don't like what you're wearing or you've got a bad haircut, you don't feel as strong, you know. It's all armor,' he said. Korda (Benicio del Toro's character), he added, 'wants all the armor he can have, because someone's going to try to kill him at any moment, and he wants to kill them back.' While Korda's wardrobe is dominated by gray pinstripes, there's room for a safari suit and a thobe. The impression is that whether behind a desk or the wheel of a plummeting airplane, Korda is a worldly man of action. In a video interview with CNN, Del Toro described the film's costuming as '50% of my performance,' heaping praise on 'legend' Canonero. 'She does your character from the bottom up,' he added. 'She's super specific. The shoes are from the period, even the underwear.' Anderson said he felt strongly about giving all the other businessmen suits too because 'these tycoons, these very rich men with tremendous ambition, they have symbols of power that they adorn their offices and their residences and their bodies with,' he explained. 'This is part of how they say, 'We're in the same club, we rule the world, and we are the ones in power.' The genius of Canonero, the director said, was 'how to make the American (suits) a little different from the European ones and how to give them each their own personality — because it is a lot of gray pinstripe suits in one movie.' Take Hanks and Cranston's West Coast railroad men: They may be holding a Coca-Cola and a Hershey's bar, but to tell they're American, one need only look at their sack suits. There's also a subtle narrative thread running through the pinstripes and chalk stripes. (As consensus builds among the businessmen who come aboard Korda's scheme, if they weren't already, they begin wearing stripes.) Once again, Anderson is playing with the idea of uniform and visual coding; it rears its head in everything from 'The Grand Budapest Hotel's' concierges to 'Bottle Rocket's' boiler-suited robbers and Steve Zissou's red beanie-sporting explorers. In 'The Phoenician Scheme,' by the time we meet Cumberbatch's character Uncle Nubar, who's wearing a running stitch-like stripe, his tailoring marks him out as different, even before his nefarious intent is revealed. This use of costuming is par for the course for the director, said Woodward: 'It's always in service of the story, it is never frivolous.' Naturally, fashion is not there for window dressing; it advances the plot. Just like Richie Tenenbaum's sweatband doesn't just signal his arrested development but signposts his forbidden love for his adopted sister in 'The Royal Tenenbaums'; M. Gustave's Society of the Crossed Keys badge foreshadows his ace-in-the-hole network of concierges when he's in a pinch in 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'; and Mr. Fox's severed tail, worn by the evil Mr. Bean as a necktie, becomes motivation for a heist in 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.' 'Everything is about storytelling,' said Anderson. 'Movies, as much as they are dialog, and as much as it is all about emotion and energy, the main thing you do with a movie is watch it,' the director said of building his visual language. 'The movie is how do we take all this information, all these ideas, these characters, these observations from lives and bits of imagination, and order them into the shape of a thing we think of as a story,' he continued. 'It's very much a rational, orderly process.' 'The Phoenician Scheme' is currently in US and UK theaters.
Hypebeast
3 hours ago
- Hypebeast
Zegna SS26 Is Laid-Back Luxury At its Finest
Zegnatook its runway presentation away from Milan for the first time to showcase its SS26 collection in Dubai, along with bringing its travelling 'Villa Zegna' brand experience to the destination. Kicked off by a live piano performance from British singer and producerJames Blake, the runway show took on a more relaxed tone than Zegna's more austere contemporary sensibilities presented in previous seasons. The opening looks are made with various lightweight, pre-wrinkled fabrics covered in desert-hued checks and stripes. Characterized by popped collars, open chests, barefoot with sandals in tow, and garments tied from the neck and waist, the styling gives further emphasis to the vacation-ready mood. Then Zegna takes the audience to a verdant oasis with a burst of green looks, featuring a spectrum of lime, olive, and forest green. Textured linens, light wools, and lustrous silks are used for cleanly tailored blousons, two-piece sets, and pleated shorts. Key design details include Safari-style utility pockets, monk and camp collars, and deep V-necks. Finally, the show closes with a saturated sunset palette, featuring violet-tinted pinks, warm coral, maroon, and deep Bordeaux reds. The exuberant finale demonstrates Zegna's more expressive and youthful side, speaking to Gen Z's tastes with candy-colored pieces, including a pink, oversized waffle knit polo and high-cut pink dress shorts. The wealthy UAE desert city, known for its luxury shopping malls and futuristic mega towers, is an important market for the brand, given the country's growing luxury clientele. According toWWD, in 2024, Ermenegildo Zegna Group, which also owns Thom Browne and Tom Ford Fashion, sales exceeded $700M USD in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, making for 35% of the group's revenues. Zegna has six stores in the city, as well as other Middle East outposts in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Turkey. See the gallery above for a closer look at the Zegna SS26 collection.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Snoop Dogg's Biopic Lands a Gen Z Star — But It's Not Who You'd Expect
Snoop Dogg has found the right man for the job. The rap star's upcoming biopic with Universal Pictures had a big announcement on June 9. The film cast a Gen Z star to play the lead role about Calvin Broadus Jr.'s rise to the top from the streets of Long Beach, CA to Hollywood. The actor who will play the coveted role is familiar to Outer Banks fans — it's actor Jonathan Daviss, according to Deadline. Daviss plays Pope Heyward on the Netflix series which was just picked up for its fifth and final season. The YA adventure series that began in 2020 was a breakthrough career moment for the 25-year-old actor. 'Being a public figure changes the way you just do anything, when everybody's looking at you. It exacerbates a lot of who you are, and that can be kind of scary,' he told Bustle in October 2024. 'Your privacy is kind of gone to [the point] where everybody cares about who you're with. You're just like, 'Man, I'm a person, just like you're a person.'' Daviss better get used to the attention because his career just got bigger with the Snoop Dogg biopic. The 53-year-old rapper shared the news in a June 9 Instagram post. He wrote in the caption, "Let's go nefew [nephew] !!" while tagging Daviss. The young actor responded in the comments, "It's up Unc. [uncle]" Daviss added a post to his feed, too. "Bow wow wow," he wrote next to the Deadline article. Outer Banks may have put Daviss on Hollywood's radar, but the Snoop Dogg biopic will take his fame to a whole new Dogg's Biopic Lands a Gen Z Star — But It's Not Who You'd Expect first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 9, 2025
