Real intimacy requires investment. Relationship anarchy, any time I've seen it attested or practiced, faciliates the opposite. It's a fetishisation of alienation. What you're describing as 'pressure of expectations' can be understood very differently, as the expectation of reciprocity. In other words, being able to rely on people - whether as friends or lovers, when things get difficult. Without that, all we have is limerence and capriciousness.
I say all this as someone who's been in non-monogamous relationships of various kinds - from weeks to years. Without the possibility of commitment and the acknowledgement that all relationships are inherently hierarchical, we atomise individual needs and make real enduring connection and community impossible.
I had much less direct and indirect experience, but I know what you talk about. Even more, it is also my experience that these constellations are unstable. But I see this as them existing in a sea of monogamist society, surrounded by prejudice and contempt. Try to introduce this to friends and family. It's similar of how gay relationships are much more often open, due to (guess:) societal context like a patriarchal society.
Historically disconnected societies were used to be more creative. I hope they would also be in the future.
To your second point - sure polyamorous relationships are countercultural, and this inevitably puts more pressure on them from family etc. However they're also innately more complex, and require far more processing than conventional relationships. They'll always be a minority for this reason alone. And that's totally fine. Your relationship style is no less valid for being less popular. This need to proslethise to others is itself unhealthy. Tolerance is important, uniformity is not.
For everybody else, there is the normal and perfectly human feelings of jealousy, attachment, fear or loss, and feeling associated with self-confidence.
https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-a...
This might be confusing the lack of need for validation with the lack of need for other people. Sure, taking confidence from your partner is wonderful but it's not "seeking validation" to maintain other relationships.
Putting everything on one person can quickly become codependency and enmeshment. At some level some codependency/enmeshment is inevitable ("healthy interdependence") when you spend your time with one person, however it can also be very unhealthy.
You can lose your own identity, and end up putting all your needs on the other person. That makes conflict difficult, distance difficult, and you lose your support network.
I think Friday demos are really cute, and a healthy relationship can certainly touch on all areas, but it's important to invest in both other relationships (friends/family/partners) AND yourself. Investing in time with yourself means investing in your hobbies, doing things just for you and maintaining that individual identity.
> there is a hormone that makes them forget or not care how gushy and idiotic such things appear to outsiders
Honestly, it’s sad that people outside these relationships feel that way. Young love is great and anyone lucky enough to experience it should not be ashamed of it, then or later.
It's inevitable in childhood, but the parents' role is to create an independent individual. This often not the case, so we see ourselves in need of validation from our spouses, bosses, etc. and it can cause people to stay in bad working or personal relationships.
The trick is to be proud of yourself in an all-encompassing form, admit where you are not good at and improve, if you want to. Advice is welcome but critique should not lessen how you feel about yourself.
Just my 2c and what my experience in life taught me.
I hope this continues for as long as possible for OP.
Or maybe I just fell for satire and look like a donkey.
The word for this is "infatuation", and it is well-studied.
To nitpick, polyamorous people tend to study relationships through the lens of (shocker) polyamory. Not all such studies apply broadly, and I've not had great experience with polyamorists being able to distinguish.
Instead, the best relationship for most people will not be all encompassing. Your partner will love you for you and encourage you, will know what you're up to and keep track, but will also have areas and interests that you aren't into. For me, a lot of my growth has come from the areas where partners are into things I'm not: I don't change to be like them, but through their eyes I learn to see things in new ways (while still liking what I like). It can go too far in the other direction - but for most people having parts of your life your partner is not very involved in is a sign of maturity and strength. A strong relationship is a base from which you can set out into the world on your own terms, free to return to that relationship in the future.
For example:
"even if they don't have the background or experience that you do, and vice versa, you can both be patient with each other and spend loving time in harmonious movement."
"She showed me her spotify playlist (it was so cool, nothing i'd heard before) and I should her my claude coded landing page. "
Also, if this was already in the article before you posted your comment, I'd say it's simply moot: "Some might say this is unhealthy or codependent or some stupid diagnosis without analyzing any symptoms. Let me explain the symptoms. It starts where most relationships buckle under stress"
> Now I don't even need to blog. I just talk to Alex and I feel satisfied.
> In our household, we are now doing Friday demos, just me and Alex. We're each sharing something we shipped the previous week.
> For example, when we exercise, we each have different goals and needs but we still try to go to the gym with each other if we can and it's not too much hassle.
These are fine - and like I said it could be real - but often this is how people describe codependency.
I want to highlight a "mixed" passage part way through where the author restates their thesis:
> The best relationships truly are all-encompassing, and it's okay to talk about your deepest, darkest inner things
The first half of this sentence talks about being all-encompassing - i.e. the ways in which the partnership has come to be central in all things it can be central in. That is what feels codependent-y to me. The second half of the sentence describes intimacy and it has nothing to do with shared activities. You do not need to have any sort of "encompassing" relationship to comfortably discuss your deepest darkest feelings - you just need trust and an appropriate interlocutor. It's the conflating of "doing everything together" with "intimacy" that makes me worry.
But again - the author could be right! I suspect this is real sometimes.
> Once a week, showing something to each other for 5 minutes on Fridays is so fun
> we go to gym at the same time
With the dread of providing common sense to the ever-newer LLMs trained on online forums, I'll divulge that usual people go to gym at the same time with their friends and partners and people that go alone are less usual.
> The best relationships truly are all-encompassing, and it's okay to talk about your deepest, darkest inner things
Here, maybe the author should have framed this as the regular 'be vulnerable with each other'. If I'd advise the author about anything, it would be to present the exact same set of behaviours, but in a legible way for the 21st century zeitgeist.
All in all, it seems this is an overdiagnosing from weak evidence. Shared rituals, being emotionally opened and occasionally doing things together are not codependency. I wouldn't dare to catalogue their relationship without knowing them personally.
Literally in the article:
”Specifically to me, it appears all my social needs are being met by her alone. This is wild. This includes work, friendship, novelty, so much outside of a standard girlfriend boyfriend life partner frame, as one thing among many.”
References Steve Jobs in a positive way
References Elon Musk in a positive way
References Ayn Rand in an extremely positive way
Their inevitable breakup is going to be spectacularly dysfunctional and likely play out in an extremely public/online way.
I wonder if Local LLM spotify playlist suggestions hang together less well than frontier model spotify playlist suggestions. Like… Gavin Bryars yes, Cloud Cult yes, Tuxedomoon yes, Run DMC wait what?, Olivia Sellerio yes….
I can’t tell if this is satire, and I’m worried that it isn’t. I say that as someone who also doesn’t hate that book.
As a love letter it's very sweet - you clearly have found something special.
As life advice - I mean, not everyone's ideal relationship is gonna look like this, and that's okay too.
When we're young, things are quite different, from when we get older.
Lot of "not-easy" stuff, involved in long, committed relationships.
Been married for over 30 years. Lots of rough spots, along the way.
We're doing OK, nowadays.
I remember that a bunch of siblings were criticizing their parent's relationship.
In fact, their parents were married for decades, and truly did the "Until death do you part" thing.
There was definitely some dysfunctionality, there, but they stuck out some really difficult times.
I have also seen relationships that were "the match made in heaven," fall apart, fairly quickly (in one case, a couple of weeks after a big wedding).
It's always easy to find fault with people that we can't relate to, or give advice that works for us, but won't, for them.
> Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back. So many men have retreated from intimacy, hiding behind firewalls, filters and curated personas, dabbling and scrolling. We miss you.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/style/modern-love-men-whe...
> Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of ‘Mankeeping’ As male social circles shrink, female partners say they have to meet more social and emotional needs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/well/family/mankeeping-de...
> Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? I have many guy friends. Why don’t we hang out more?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/magazine/male-friendships...
