Every few months, the internet collectively decides that love is either dead, reborn, rebranded, or replaced by a skincare routine and a VERY full calendar (DON’T look at mine). So when a British Vogue article recently questioned whether having a boyfriend is embarrassing now, the headline spread faster than complaints on the Citizen app.
Love on the L Train: Is Having a Boyfriend Really Out?
Hot take: the discourse isn’t really about whether relationships are “out.” It’s about what relationships mean now. The British Vogue piece, by writer and influencer Chanté Joseph, wasn’t a breakup letter to monogamy, romance, or commitment. It wasn’t telling women to burn their heart-shaped lockets, adopt a cat, and enter their villain era (unless you want to, live your truth). What it highlighted is something more nuanced: relationships are shifting from identity markers to intentional choices.
In other words, being someone’s girlfriend used to be seen as a milestone, proof that you were chosen, wanted, validated. Now, the cultural status symbol is being whole on your own. A partner can be a bonus, not the foundation. That doesn’t make relationships obsolete. It just means they’re no longer the narrative.
From Status to Substance
In a city like New York, where everyone is in motion, career-building, self-inventing, surviving the MTA, romance is less about filling a role and more about choosing a connection that actually fits into a full life.
A boyfriend doesn’t make you “successful.”
A relationship doesn’t complete you.
Posting your partner isn’t a personality.
Instead, we’re seeing:
* Soft-launches instead of Instagram declarations
* Private relationships with public boundaries
* Partnership rooted in emotional compatibility, not optics
* Self worth measured inwardly, not by who claims you
Love hasn’t lost value, it’s just no longer currency.
The New York Factor
Dating here has always been its own ecosystem. On the L train alone, you’ll see someone crying over a breakup, someone two weeks into a honeymoon phase situationship, someone writing poetry about their ex in their Notes app, and someone blissfully single ordering Sweetgreen. NYC doesn’t tell you which relationship status to choose, it forces you to know why you’re choosing it.
That’s the shift.
So… Are Boyfriends Out?
Not really. What’s “out” is:
* performing relationships online
* staying coupled for validation
* using a partner as proof of desirability
* building identity around being chosen
What’s in is:
* emotional integrity
* slow love
* privacy
* intentional partnership
* relationships as a choice, not a default
People aren’t rejecting intimacy, they’re rejecting the expectation that having a boyfriend is an achievement in itself.
Love Isn’t Leaving, It’s Evolving
Maybe the real headline should’ve been:
Connection is optional; self-fulfillment isn’t.
Whether we pair up, stay single, date casually, or commit deeply, the new relationship culture is about autonomy with room for connection, not dependency masked as romance.
The question isn’t “Is having a boyfriend out?”
It’s “Who am I when I’m not defined by one?”
And that’s a shift worth talking about.
