Relationships

Features

Once the domain of boomers on cruises, zillennials are reimagining swinging for the sex party age. 

Couple kissing

Sex recession, who? Meet the young couples bringing back swinging

Our screens and TLs have painted a picture-perfect ideal of female friendship, but when your life doesn’t resemble this fantasy, it can feel like a failure. Growing up, I thought becoming a woman would come with two guarantees: the romantic soulmate and the female best friend. As a teenager, I lived off a steady diet of romcoms and sitcoms, unconsciously absorbing a script for how adulthood would unfold. Obviously, I would work at a fashion magazine like Jenna in 13 Going on 30 and live in an impossibly large flat in an impossibly expensive city with five of my closest friends, Friends-style. One day, a tall, mysterious man (looking suspiciously like Colin Firth) would confess he loves me just as I am. Until then, my close-knit group of besties would be available 24/7 to dissect the minutiae of my dating life and to hold my hand through all of life’s hurdles.

But as I navigated my 20s, cracks started to appear in my fantasy. My experience working in fashion was more The Devil Wears Prada than How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and my friendships and love life often felt closer to an anxiety-inducing episode of Girls than Sex and the City. However, one thing did happen: I found the guy.

I met my husband the lockdown way: dating apps and coffee walks. (Not exactly a romcom, although I did get locked inside a public toilet minutes before our first date, which surely qualifies as a modern meet-cute). Two years later, he proposed in that same spot (the beach, not the toilet), and it genuinely felt like a movie. Now we’re married and happy: both lifting each other up and figuring out adulthood together. And with that, I achieved half of that teenage dream.

Couple

‘I’m married but I’m still looking for The One’

Because sometimes a terrible joke is a better conversation starter than a pickup line.

40 dirty knock-knock jokes for people who'd rather flirt than send "hey"

From screenshot analyses to reality checks, the guy-best-friend filter has become the internet's latest dating theory. And here's why it works! 

The Kissing Booth

How the 'guy-best-friend filter' has been saving women from toxic red-flag men

A thoughtful apology can be convincing. Real change is harder to fake. So before you mistake better texting for better behaviour, here's the reality check your heart probably doesn't want but definitely needs.

The summer i turned pretty

Thinking of giving him a second chance? Here's how to tell if he deserves one

Consider your next date night officially planned.

45 fun date ideas that are way better than dinner and drinks

Expert advice on showing them the love, support, and celebration this news deserves.

So your partner just came out as bisexual—here’s how to support them

Once deemed the coolest way to do relationships, non-monogamy has now officially entered its era of bad press. What gives?

Did the non-monogamy ‘experiment’ fail?

Desire isn’t always spontaneous. Sometimes it takes getting into it to really get into it. 

Maintenance sex: Why the most successful long-term couples do it, even when they’re not in the mood

From friends-to-lovers to second-chance romance, your favourite love story might be saying more about your own romantic life than you think.

Voicemails for Isabelle

What your go-to romance trope reveals about your dating style

Relationship Tips: Cosmopolitan India brings latest relationship blogs to coach a concept of romantic relationships, love relationship, relationship goals, relationship problems, advice and solution. Also read articles about beauty tips, celebrity interview, latest fashion trends, lifestyle and horoscope of the day.