Have you started building your festive roster yet? Ideally, you’ll want to have about three people circulating, four if you’ve got the time. One might be great for Friday nights: some overpriced cocktails here, a spontaneous quickie there. Another suits for Sundays, when one of you pores over what takeout to order while the other tackles Netflix. And, if you time it right, the other is your perfect plus-one, primed to tackle nosy family members at Christmas gatherings, one pre-approved dad joke at a time.
In today’s dating scene, the roster is no longer just an eccentricity practiced by the particularly horny and well-organized. It’s a survival mechanism, one that has become integral in the run-up to silly season, when everyone who’s single is more than ready to jingle.
To be clear, I’m talking about dating multiple people at once. And, yes, I’m aware this is hardly a revolutionary strategy. But it wasn’t something I ever noticed my single friends doing, at least not so intentionally, until recently. Now, though, we’re all drinking the roster Kool-Aid. And let me tell you: it’s delicious.
“I need to add an older man to my roster,” a friend recently mused. “Just, like, someone that knows where all the good restaurants are but still has hair. That would be nice.” Another newly single pal told me she’s looking to recruit younger. Or, as she put it, “a kinky little Gen-Z freak that can show me what the kids are up to these days.” One is in the market for an artist “to equalize the corporate energy”—she’s a banker.
Don’t let chatter like this fool you into thinking the roster is just about broadening your sexual palette or following some sort of Sex and the City wish-fulfilment. There are legitimate benefits to dating this way, particularly if you’re someone who has a tendency to fixate on anyone that shows even a modicum of interest—you know, the most jaded among us, for whom a simple compliment is practically a marriage proposal. The ones whose entire nervous system collapses every time they see the little chat bubble. People who spend the day after a date writing sonnets in their Notes app.
“It helps me maintain perspective and not feel too bound to anyone,” says Leila*, 29, who has been a major advocate of roster-dating since she broke up with her long-term partner four years ago. “Online dating can make you feel weirdly committed to someone, when realistically you’ve only just met them. When you date a few people at once, it can be a good reminder that there are plenty of fish in the sea and you don’t have to doggedly pursue something that isn’t working.” Harriet*, 36, agrees: “It stops me getting so attached to one person and [helps me remember] I have plenty of options.”
