"Casual" isn't real

on the rise of nonchalance in relationships

Modern society has lost sight of what the word casual is supposed to mean, especially in terms of dating. It’s plastered in dating app bios, used as a weapon during those dreaded what are we? conversations, and echoed in the cultural noise around us. Today, casual has become synonymous with pretending not to care when you actually really do.

I think about this often. Like when my summer situationship (as written about in Love, briefly) claimed he didn’t have any interest in dating or being in a relationship. Even after two months of acting totally to the contrary (as they often do), where he behaved like someone invested: thoughtful, attentive, and present.

I suggested we stop talking, appealing to the logical side of me that I don’t listen to as often as I should. He agreed begrudgingly, saying he didn’t want to, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

The next morning, he texted: “Is it wrong to just casually talk?” I was so relieved that he didn’t want to lose me completely, accepting whatever scraps he so graciously offered me, that I didn’t notice the absurdity of what he suggested. “Can you define that?” I asked. “Talking but without expectations I guess?” he replied. Even he didn’t know what he meant.

Still, I agreed. But it had become lackluster. It felt as though a shadow had been cast on something that was once filled with so much light. That beacon of hope and possibility had now been hidden by charcoal clouds, obscuring the luster I once clung to so tightly. I began rethinking every word, wondering if it was casual enough, wondering if I seemed like I cared but not too much, scared that I was overstepping some invisible boundary we had never clarified. I was trying and failing to strike the perfect balance of detachment.

By the end of the week, we weren’t speaking at all.

I’ve noticed a rise of the word casual especially in the language of dating. Apps will ask if you’re looking for casual fun as if that’s totally separate from looking for a relationship. But aren’t they combined, too? Isn’t dating supposed to be fun?

Looking back, my heart overran my better judgment, betraying the screams of my gut instinct. My fear of being discarded is what stopped me from simply telling him: “No, I don’t think that will work.” I didn’t want to be the girl who said too much too soon. In some distorted way, I thought that would make me seem uninteresting. So I convinced myself I was okay with his warped definition of casual. In reality, I was just afraid of seeming like too much. Too emotional. Too expectant. After all, what’s fun about a girl with emotions?

Dating, something that was designed to be fun and lighthearted, has morphed into something it was never supposed to become. It’s become a heavy, intimidating, daunting battleground. If you express interest in a guy, it’s suddenly as if you’ve just proposed marriage. And to that, I always want to ask, “What makes you think I want to marry you when I don’t even know if I like you yet?”

Somehow, we’ve blurred the line between casual and nonchalant. Men want to act like you’re dating and revel in the comfort of connection without the responsibility of clarity. Because actually dating would just be insane. I told my summer situationship: “Dating wouldn’t be very different from what we already do.” But there’s no leveling with an avoidant who’s already halfway out the door. No matter how much evidence you provide, you’re shouting into the void. My stash of primary sources were treated like the words of folklore — heard, but never believed.

It always seems to be one or the other: the suffocating seriousness of a “real” relationship or a carefree fling with no stakes at all. The in-between is what feels nearly impossible to find.

In every relationship, you have expectations. Even though you don’t sit in a room together, look over a chartered agreement, and sign off on it. There’s an unspoken agreement among friends, family, and significant others: to be listened to, loved, respected, and treated like a person whose feelings matter. Asking someone to have “no expectations” is treating them as less than human. No one is as “go with the flow” as they present themselves to be. What my summer situationship really meant to say was, “Can we keep talking in case I change my mind?”

The problem isn’t casual, it’s the lack of accountability that often hides behind it. Because technically you weren’t official, so technically your feelings don’t count. They’re purely nonsensical.

It’s impossible to be casual in a relationship if what’s expected is nonchalance and emotional detachment. It is possible to be casual in the truest sense of the word: open, low-pressure, exploratory. But that’s not what people mean when they say it now.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie pokes fun at this epidemic of romantic ambiguity and performative nonchalance. There’s one scene, as Barbieland begins to crumble under the weight of the Kens’ patriarchal takeover, that made every theater erupt with laughter. This is when Barbie tells Ken that she agrees to be his “long-term distance low-commitment casual girlfriend.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many people, sunk into their reclining seats, realized how many times they’d agreed to play that exact role. Because if it sounds so absurd when it’s said aloud, why do so many of us still agree to it in silence?

Frankly, the modern definition of casual has never appealed to me. I’m not interested in minimizing how I feel or pretending not to care just to keep someone around. I want no part in feigning disinterest to appease someone and hold them for as long as I can before they eventually slip through my fingers. It only delays the inevitable. Because eventually, you’ll be seen for who you really are, no matter how well you try to mask it.

I don’t hate the idea of casual. I hate what we’ve turned it into. It shouldn’t mean don’t care, don’t ask, don’t expect. It should mean let’s see where this goes, without fear, without performance, and with enough courage to take the risk of being seen in one’s entirety — the good and the ugly. People aren’t meant to hide in the guise of nonchalance; they are all too complex for that.

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