Some people might have started putting this interest into practice, too. Dating app OK Cupid named open relationships a top dating trend in 2024. In 2024, OK Cupid saw a two percent increase in the number of users who said they would consider an open relationship.
As a reminder, an open relationship is one in which one or both partners are free to explore other romantic or sexual encounters under the couple’s own individual set of guidelines. A poly relationship is one in which people have multiple committed romantic partners.
Experts didn’t necessarily see this one coming. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” says Tara Suwinyattichaiporn, PhD, a tenured professor of relational communication at California State University, Fullerton, and dating coach based in Los Angeles. Suwinyattichaiporn notes that whenever she posts about topics related to non-monogamy, she gets a lot of negative comments from her 2.2 million followers across TikTok and Instagram.
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However, this could be where Google is particularly revealing. Perhaps Americans are more comfortable exploring their curiosities online than in public. Suwinyattichaiporn has noticed an uptick in curiosity behind closed doors in her relationship coaching, too. “People will not say it on social media, but then they’ll say it in private sessions.”
The year of open relationships?
So why has 2024 been a breakthrough year for open relationship interest? Suwinyattichaiporn says pop culture may have something to do with it. She points to the buzzy film Challengers, which features a threesome and a love triangle, as raising the profile of non-monogamy. Bravo also debuted a reality TV series titled Couple to Throuple, which depicted the process of couples opening up their relationships to a third person. Celebrities in non-monogamous relationships, like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, have been more vocal in recent years. And open relationships have become a much-discussed trope on BookTok; an entire category around women with multiple lovers has emerged with the questionable name “reverse harem.”
Even the 2024 Paris Olympics got in on it. The opening ceremony featured a vignette of three people seemingly about to have a ménage-à-trois.
Suwinyattichaiporn posits that the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in sparking people’s curiosity. Couples spending so much time together during stressful quarantine made them re-evaluate their overall satisfaction. “People just have this renewed sense of life and of [wanting] to do what makes them happy,” Suwinyattichaiporn says. “Now, a couple of years after COVID, people are just like, hey, maybe this [monogamy] is not what I want, and maybe I’m curious to look into something else.”
Overall, Suwinyattichaiporn says she’s glad people are seeking out information about open relationships because there are so many misconceptions about the arrangement—which partially explains the stigma.
“I think that’s why people are so afraid, because they get such conflicting information, and that causes uncertainty,” Suwinyattichaiporn says. “It’s just another type of relationship, and it works for some and doesn’t work for others, just like monogamy.”
She also hopes people embrace their curiosity, but take the online accounts they might find on forums like Reddit with a grain of salt. Just because it did or didn’t work for one person does not mean the same for you.
“You only live once,” Suwinyattichaiporn says. Googling an idea will only get you so far. “If you are dissatisfied, unfulfilled, or unhappy in traditional types of relationships, you can only learn through trying.”
