Why the Dating-App Generation Should Embrace the "Arbitrary-versary"

We swiped right in December, and a week later met for what was supposed to be a one-night stand. We made a soup together in March, with tomato, kale, and white beans, plus a parmesan rind that I snuck in at the end to really make it sing. In August we used the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." And by the following December, already with a year full of memories in the bank, we were clueless about what date to consider our actual "anniversary."

Relationships today rarely follow the formula of the sitcoms and romcoms we saw growing up, the ones that hardwired our perceptions of romance. Hardly any connections in 2025 are as simple and straightforward as those TBS reruns, where a main character meets someone at a bar or cafe, goes on a few dates, becomes "exclusive," then either breaks up or gets married. End of show.

With a reported 30 percent of US adults experienced with dating apps, that pattern feels more foreign by the day. There are far fewer blueprints for relationships that were sparked online, and all the messiness and confusion that can entail. For dating hopefuls who feel attached to a more rigid agenda, that can present a challenge. But the internet age has also created opportunities to get creative with our relationship markers, to have some agency in how we express our affection so that it really reflects our experience, not just what we think affection should look like.

Nonmonogamous partners, too — like my boyfriend and me — purposefully don't subscribe to the same relationship constraints of monogamous couples. There's no enforcement of "exclusivity," and thus no potential to shape an anniversary around the act of becoming exclusive. In her relationships, polyamory expert Laura Boyle carves out what she's called "arbitrary-versaries," in which she picks random days throughout the year to celebrate her different romantic relationships, not necessarily tied to actual events.

So, what does an anniversary even look like in 2025? The day you swiped right? Your polycule's first picnic? The day you agreed to stop hooking up with the other 10 people in your roster? Something simple, like the very first day you met? Whatever it is, inventing our own anniversaries allows us to let go of the superficial milestones and time-markers that have too long defined what counts as a "legitimate" relationship and what doesn't. You don't have to be exclusive, living together, or married to feel a connection with someone so profound that you want to celebrate it once a year. (Or more times! Go nuts!)

My boyfriend and I still haven't pinpointed the day we became "official," a phrase that gives me the ick deep in my bones. But this year we celebrated the one-year anniversary of that first soup we made together, which was only our second or third date. Cooking together in my kitchen felt like a big step, breaking an intimacy barrier as special and rarefied as a first kiss or first sexual experience. As the soup simmered, we talked a lot about where our taste in music overlaps and diverges, how we relate to our families, and our core food memories. He dubbed it a night of "co-souping," and this past March we celebrated our first annual co-soup day together — proof that we can mark time in our own way.

If you're looking for alternative anniversaries to celebrate in your own life, here are some ideas to get you started:

Any occasion or moment that feels significant to you and your relationship is worthy of commemoration, not just the classic milestones that get all the attention. Those are all lovely, of course, and it makes sense that we should give them their fair due. But sometimes the first slurp of your first co-soup holds more meaning than you could ever have imagined.

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she's covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.