Hack Your Brain with Relationship Anarchy

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hi friends, my name is Trris and this is No Boiler Plate where I focus on fast technical videos. A lesson that I suspect many parents and teachers are already hoping to instill in the young people in their care is no one is always more important than anyone else and no relationship is always more important than any other. This received wisdom comes in many forms. Don't forget your mates when you get a girlfriend would be an example, but so would don't let your parents dictate whom you choose to marry. These might seem like common sense, but society actually has very specific ideas about which relationships are more important than others. And as anyone who has taken chemistry beyond high school will tell you, sometimes you have to unlearn everything you have been taught for your entire life to improve.

[00:00:40]Relationship anarchy provides an alternate lens for us here. But first, we must ask ourselves, do we know what anarchy is? I dedicate my video scripts to the public domain. Everything you see here, script, links, and images are part of a markdown document available freely on my website, namal.com and GitHub.

[00:00:56]Political anarchism is a philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish authority, coercion, and hierarchy in our political process. Political anarchy questions inherent hierarchies in our society, kings and subjects, lords and surfs, bosses and employees, rich and poor, asking especially why having some people in power over other people is so highly valued in our society.

[00:01:18]Relationship anarchism is a philosophy that seeks to abolish authority, coercion, and hierarchy in interpersonal relationships. Relationship anarchy questions inherent hierarchies in our relationships, especially why romantic relationships are so highly valued in our society over all other kinds.

[00:01:35]Anarchy rejects hierarchy in our political process. Relationship anarchy rejects hierarchy and our relationships with each other. Are we clear? Anarchy against hierarchy. Full disclosure, I wrote this video to introduce you to this important yet inherently queer topic. Please understand that I'm not speaking from experience, but a hyperfocused side quest deep dive I went down while researching mental health topics for my podcast, Lost Terminal.

[00:01:58]I've provided links to books, articles, and other videos by queer experts in the field for you to engage with further, and I recommend that you do. As we move through our lives, we are surrounded by bad relationship examples in books, films, online, and even in our parents and teachers. I don't blame them.

[00:02:15]They're just doing the best they can following society's default path that relationship anarchists name the relationship escalator. This is the first tool I want to tell you about today. Society seems to have this rule that every romantic relationship must follow this exact route. Meet, date, exclusive, move in together, get married, share finances, have adopt children, retire, and die. It's called an escalator because once you're on the bottom step, you are pulled up by society. Even if you're very comfortable where you are, thank you very much.

[00:02:43]Perhaps you'd like to slow down or return to a previous comfortable level without breaking up and starting all over again at the bottom. This metaphor is genius because if you ever try to walk down an up escalator, you don't just have to fight against the will of the machine, but all the people who protest as you push past them, who are saying things like, "He's not asked you to marry him yet. What a time waster.

[00:03:06]You guys aren't exclusive. You're obviously not serious about each other."

[00:03:09]And my favorite, "You've been married for 5 years. Where are my grandchildren?" And even I go on too many dates, but I can't make them stay.

[00:03:17]At least that's what people say. Taylor, darling, who are these people? Blink twice if you're under duress. And they start us so young. First comes love, then comes marriage, then and only then a baby's authorized. And so on in every film, every song, every Hallmark advert, death by a thousand paper cuts. and we hardly even know we are learning these rules. It's just me running this channel and I'm so grateful to everyone for supporting me on this wild adventure.

[00:03:47]Please consider my Patreon, especially if you'd like more videos like this, as queer topics are often demonetized here on YouTube. If you'd like to see and give feedback on my videos up to a week early, as well as private Discord access and even your name in the credits, it would be very kind of you to check my Patreon. I also offer regular mentoring if you'd like one-to-one tuition on ADHD and autism, personal organization, programming, creative production, or anything I talk about in my videos. Do sign up and let's chat. Let's look at some case studies, shall we? Audible gasp. Bella can't possibly have complex feelings for two guys. That's unheard of. What can she, a good Mormon coded girl, do? Poor stupid Kristoff knew that society would judge Anna's possible future relationship with her possible future prince husband as more important than his, a mere peasants love. These two starcrossed galaxy brain geniuses don't even know each other's names until act two. The point is, society had a lot to say about Romeo and Juliet's relationship, but none of it actually helped them. The lesson is clear. We must talk to the people we are in relationships with, not just make assumptions. Because traditional coupling can be harmful. When we are in love with someone, especially at the start, the romance can feel all-encompassing. This special someone seems to be all we're talking and thinking about. Isn't it good to pour all of our effort and expectations into this person? Just as we have heard people do in every story ever written.

[00:05:14]It's not. And I'll explain using tool two, the smogers board. In a restaurant, a smores board is a buffet of many small items that you can fill your plate with.

[00:05:23]A little of this, a little of that. If you don't like meat, no one is forcing you to have some. If you love olives, take a whole bunch. It's an alternative to a set menu where you'll eat what you are served, like it or not. Relationship anarchists take all the behaviors that, according to the escalator, previously had to be fulfilled by just one person, and splits them into a buffet that you can use as a conversation starter with your friends, paramors, or messy situationships. Just look at the options that are available. Quite a menu. Most people won't have an appetite for everything here, and that's fine. That's how a menu works. Some people don't like food that's too spicy, and that's the same here. I'm not here to king shame.

[00:06:06]Having all these topics available to discuss with someone you are in a relationship with, gives you a much richer vocabulary to answer the question, "So, what are we to each other?" Far more than friend, lover, partner, the only options society tells us are available. For example, Alice and Jane might like sleeping together, but after a discussion don't see themselves moving in or starting a family or caregiving for each other. Alice and Bob see each other all the time, and they are comfortable with cuddling whilst watching a movie and holding hands while in social situations and love their relationship just as it is. Any of these people might have other relationships that involve other parts of the smores board. And just as you don't check in with existing friends before making a new friend, you just do it. Relationship anarchy is optimized for the lovely unexpected. This all sounds utopic, but there is a darker side of the smores board which I touched on earlier. Under the existing assumptions of the kind of society that unquestioningly accepts the relationship escalator, all these options must be fulfilled by exactly one person. What a terrible burden to put on someone, right? Relationship anarchy is about optimizing friendships. There's no escalator for friendships because society in general doesn't place importance on them. Sex sells, but friendships don't. Isn't that sad?

[00:07:23]Asexual and a-romantic people suffer hugely from this depp prioritization of friendships. Take away friends, what's left? As the thinking arrow says, relationship anarchy is fundamentally about community as much as monogous and polyamorous lifestyles are fundamentally about the couple. That doesn't mean that couples can't exist in relationship anarchy, but it does mean that the focus of a relationship anarchist's life and emotional energy is not a couple relationship by default the way it is for monogamists and polyamorists. A clear example of society devaluing friendship relationships is in Project Hail Mary, my film of the year so far.

[00:07:58]Because Grace has no family, he is expendable because family are assumed to be more important than him enriching the lives of hundreds of his students. I want to pause at the end here and give a reality check. It's very normal to place more importance on those we love, families especially. And because of this, society is rather set up for the twoerson double-income household. So much so that having a roommate when renting a flat is assumed behavior.

[00:08:22]Coupling in one way or another is often the easier choice for people.

[00:08:27]Relationship panic encompasses these coupled relationships too, but doesn't accept them as the default or best, and neither should you. Assumptions are never good, and that counts double in relationships, especially the harmful assumption that your exclusive partner must fulfill everything you require. How could that possibly be? Would you want the pressure of fulfilling everything on the smores board for your partner? And what about the quiet resentment when you inevitably fall short? Relationship anarchy provides an ethos and framework to talk to the people you are in relationships with without the baggage of society dragging you down. Instead of having romantic partners and friends, you just have relationships defining what each means within them. You might one day get married. I can highly recommend it. But if you do so on the strong foundation of communication that relationship anarchy requires, you will be happier and your partner will be too and her partner and his throppple and all the friends you loved along the way.

[00:09:22]Thank you. If you'd like to support my channel, get early ad free and tracking free videos, your name in the credits, or one-to-one mentoring, head to my Patreon or Kofi. If you're interested in transhumanism and hope, please check out my weekly sci-fi audio fiction podcast, Lost Terminal. If you like urban fantasy, I produce a wonderful podcast called Modem Prometheus. I just finished season 3 of the Fosskin catalog. If you like mysteries and art, check it out.

[00:09:44]Transcripts and compile check markdown source code available now on GitHub.

[00:09:47]Links in the description and corrections are in the pinned erata comment. Thank you so much for watching. Talk to you on Discord.