You’re a part-time lover, and a full-time friend.
The monkey on your back is the latest trend.
I don’t see what anyone else can see in anyone else but you.
So goes the 2007 Indie rock song “Anyone Else But You” by The Moldy Peaches, which was featured prominently in the movie “Juno.”
But what if the concept of part-time lovers went from a line in a song to a full-fledged dating site?
It actually has—albeit just in England so far.
Part Time Love’s tagline is “Meaningful Romance Without Everyday Commitment.” It’s a site that’s meant to set people up on dates in order to find relationships. The key difference is that the relationships aren’t designed to be all-consuming but rather part-time.
Make no mistake, the site designers say, this isn’t Grindr or another hookup app that works in sex as a currency. It’s simply trying to face the reality that we’re busy people and maybe we want a relationship that fits into our careers, hobbies and other commitments without burdening our time.
The Daily Mail profiled Part Time Love recently, and gave a few scenarios of who would use the relationship-seeking portal:
• Someone just out of a long-term relationship and wanting to take things slow
• A single parent who travels three days a week
• An individual focused on a new career goal without time for a conventional all-consuming relationship
In each case, there’s not a need to settle for “meaningless flings,” according to the site, in spirit of distracting life circumstances. Others in similar boats are out there and ready to mingle in this online cocktail party. Joining the site is free but — sorry gays and lesbians — at the moment for men seeking women and women seeking men.
So, who’s behind this twist on a standard dating site?
A woman named Helen Croydon. Croydon has written about the benefits of so-called low-maintenance relationships and has a book out called “Screw the Fairytale” that chronicles alternatives to traditional marriage. The author herself, 36, has written openly and extensively about her time on sugardaddie.com in which she met super-rich men who would pay for her glamorour lifestyle. She’s a small-town girl, you might say, having come from Cheshie, England, who had bigger aspirations for atypical love.
I have to say it doesn’t surprise me that a site touting part-time relationships has emerged. In so many ways there’s a movement to abandon traditional marriage-centered relationships. Sure, plenty of couples are deciding to wed. Plenty also are trying on the unconventional whether that means open relationships, living apart or tweaks on how they go about meeting mates in the first place.
It’s at a point where I’m not really sure what a normal relationship would be or how to describe it. I’m also not sure what a normal working situation is. There’s, similarly, a surge in part-time workers who juggle jobs. We’re playing around with how to schedule our time and our lives. We’re trying out hybrids, I think, to give ourselves more freedom and choice. This extends to work and play. When all is said and done, this can’t be bad.
-Dena