According to Feeld’s new State of Dating report, the solution to the modern loneliness crisis might lie in “relationship anarchy”.

Despite what the name might suggest, relationship anarchy (RA) – a term coined by writer Andie Nordgren in a 2012 Tumblr essay – is not a style of nonmonogamy where there are no rules, no commitment and you can do whatever you want at all times. You don’t even need to live in Portland or make your own kimchi to practice it. Instead, RA is a relationship style centred on the very reasonable belief that “no relationship should be bound by any rules not entirely agreed upon by the involved parties”, as Feeld puts it.

Unlike Relationship Stalinism, its arch-rival, RA promotes a non-hierarchical approach to relationships, so that romantic and sexual partners aren’t ranked more highly than each other, than platonic friends or family members. So if your besties are as important to you as your love life, you might just be a budding relationship anarchist. If, on the other hand, you veer wildly between insisting that your friends are everything and chucking them off a bridge the second someone hot slides in your DMs, it might not be for you.

This aversion to hierarchy, writes Luke Brenning in The Conversation, is the key thing which distinguishes it from polyamory, swinging or other forms of non-monogamy which make a distinction between sex and romance, or between “primary and secondary partners”. In fact, while RA is usually non-monogamous, it doesn’t have to be, and one of the key tenets is that it doesn’t prescribe a particular way of being in relationships. 

According to Feeld’s report, which was a collaboration with sex educator and author Ruby Rare, RA is most popular among young people, people who identify as LGBTQ+, and people who already have experience with ethical nonmonogamy. Among the survey as a whole, people who identify as asexual are most likely to practice RA, perhaps because it doesn’t prioritise sexual partnerships over other forms of connection. In the survey’s most shocking finding, pansexual Feeld members have the highest likelihood of being a relationship anarchist.

The report found that a fifth of non-Feeld members and almost half of Feeld members were already practising something like RA without realising it. That said, this could be because “relationships should not be governed by rules which are not agreed by all parties” is an ethos so broad that it could apply to monogamous marriage and be accepted by just about anyone. Likewise, lots of people believe that their platonic friendships are just as important as their romantic or sexual partners. The tenets of relationship anarchy, as defined by Feeld, are so vague that just about anyone could embrace the term. Even your parents.

RA poses a range of problems, including stigma from friends and family, the challenges of unlearning conventional narratives about love, and navigating boundaries, which RA respondents found 536 per cent more difficult than people not practising RA. This particular issue could be because relationship anarchists are not working from a pre-approved script, as figuring out new ways of relating to each other is the whole point. People who practice RA are also 96 per cent more likely to have experienced negative reactions from prioritising seeing multiple partners over focusing on a single partner. 

But the overall picture is positive. According to Feeld, RA practitioners enjoy more freedom and experience less loneliness; they are 20 per cent more likely to have a reliable support network and 31 per cent more likely to report feeling that they can shape their relationships to meet their personal needs. 

Overall all, the report has forced me to reexamine my prejudices about relationship anarchy. I realise now that it’s not just a Fuck Boy’s Charter or a groovy lifestyle practiced only by the kind of people who draw webcomics about Luigi Mangione. The principles which underpin it are hard to argue with. But is it too good to be true? Is it really possible to afford each of your relationships equal weight at all times? Sometimes it’s fun to be head over heels for someone in a way that supersedes everything else, even if that’s not healthy, virtuous or in keeping with principles of anarchism.