Casual dating

Casual dating is going on dates with someone without agreeing to be exclusive or to aim for a relationship. Sex may or may not be part of it. The word covers three different deals, from seeing several people at once to taking one person slowly, so the useful question is which casual someone means.

Updated October 6, 2026

Means

Dating without agreeing to be exclusive or heading anywhere in particular

First seen

1941 (Psychiatry); in US books as the stage before going steady by 1947 and 1954; Urban Dictionary October 16, 2005; no dictionary entry for the phrase itself

Related terms

Situationship, Friends with benefits (FWB), Talking stage, Roster dating, DTR (define the relationship)

In Swedish

Casual

Casual dating is one phrase doing three jobs, and it rarely comes with a note saying which. We read two Pew surveys of US adults, eight studies (mostly in abstract or summary), the explainers that rank for the phrase, the intention menus on Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, and four threads on Mumsnet, a British parenting forum. The tables, the scripts and the rule of thumb are ours. Skip to the three meanings of casual.

What casual dating means (three versions of “casual”)

Casual dating means dating without agreeing to be exclusive or to aim for a relationship. Most definitions agree on that much and part ways on the rest, starting at the top of the search results. Wikipedia’s article has casual daters “staying loyal to each other” (Wikipedia). A dating-app company’s explainer has them seeing “maybe even multiple people” (Candle, 2025). Both cannot be the default.

In everyday use the word covers three arrangements. None of them settles kissing, sex or sleepovers in advance; those are whatever the two people agree. The table is ours, built from the threads and explainers we read.

Pew’s 2022 survey listed “to date casually” and “to have casual sex” as separate reasons for using dating sites and apps. Among US adults who had used one in the past year (951 people, unweighted, surveyed July 5 to 17, 2022), 40% called dating casually a major reason and 24% said the same of casual sex (Pew Research Center, 2023). The survey treats them as separate reasons, and the shares differ.

The third row is the one that causes trouble, because it sounds like the first. In a Mumsnet thread started November 1, 2014, with about 11 replies, a newly separated poster had been told the plan was casual dating, then got daily texts and an invitation to a full day out. One reply suggested that some people use the word “as a soft way of saying they simply want to take things slower” (Mumsnet, November 2014). In a thread started May 21, 2020, with about 21 replies, a poster drew the line between “casual (as in taking it slowly)” and “casual as in one or both of you are sleeping with other people” (Mumsnet, May 2020). If nobody says which row they mean, each person tends to assume their own.

Casual dating vs a situationship, friends with benefits and a hookup

These differ in two ways: whether there are dates, and whether anyone has said what this is.

Friends with benefits starts as a friendship, so the people already know each other. Casual dating usually starts between strangers and includes actual dates. When its terms are said out loud, it is usually as “not exclusive,” and often they are not said at all. The four-way comparison is the table on friends with benefits. The second row of our table, regular sex with no relationship, is the version of casual closest to FWB, minus the friendship.

Our view: a situationship is often casual dating nobody updated. It began casual, one of you started wanting more, and nobody said so. From the outside nothing changed. The difference is what one person is now hoping for.

A hookup is sex without the dating, often once. Casual dating has the dinners and the getting to know each other. Healthline’s guide describes casual dating as “connections that involve some degree of emotional attachment” (Healthline, 2020). A hookup needs none.

Roster dating is seeing several people on purpose while you decide, which is casual dating with a deadline in someone’s head. The talking stage comes before most of these: texting, perhaps a meeting, nothing named yet. If both of you mean the third row, want it to go somewhere and have said so, that is what slow dating describes.

The words blur in everyday use. In a Mumsnet thread started December 27, 2020, with about 7 replies, one poster wrote that “seeing someone means something casual,” another treated seeing and dating as the same thing, and one reply cut it short: “Ask them.” (Mumsnet, December 2020).

How long casual dating lasts, and whether it turns serious

We found no study of how long casual dating lasts, so we would treat a figure quoted online as a guess. A 1954 dating manual allowed that it “sometimes lasts until the individual is ready to marry” (Landis, 1954), which is about as precise as anything we found.

What does exist is a snapshot of what casual daters want. Pew surveyed 4,860 US adults in October 2019 and counted as single anyone who was not married, not living with a partner and not in a committed relationship. Of those singles, 13% said they were casually dating someone. Among them, 52% were open to either a committed relationship or casual dates, 24% wanted only a relationship, 19% wanted only casual dates, and 5% were not looking for either right now. By our arithmetic, 76% were open to a relationship. Among singles who were looking for dates or a relationship, people 40 and older were more likely than younger ones to want only casual dates, 24% against 15% (Pew Research Center, 2020).

In one study, the gap between couples who delayed sex and those who did not disappeared once interest in a serious relationship was counted. A University of Iowa study surveyed 642 heterosexual adults in the Chicago area. Relationship quality was higher on average for couples who delayed sex, but the gap disappeared once people who were not interested in a serious relationship were taken into account. Couples who became involved as friends or acquaintances and were open to something serious “ended up just as happy as those who dated and waited.” In the author’s words: “The finding is that it’s something about the people” (Paik, 2010; ScienceDaily, 2010).

The success stories we found are on Mumsnet. In the May 2020 thread asking whether a casual relationship ever became serious, several posters had married someone they met that way, one after a one night stand in 1983 and one after a Tinder hookup (Mumsnet, May 2020). Threads like that collect the ones that worked. People whose casual thing ended quietly have less reason to reply.

Our rule of thumb: when one of you hopes for more, saying so early costs less than hinting. The talk itself, with scripts, is on DTR. The three-month limit this site uses for an open question is a rule of thumb of ours, not a finding; it is on situationship and applies to the question, not to casual dating. Schedules such as the 3-3-3 rule have their own page.

What to do about it (saying you want something casual)

Say which casual you mean. In a Mumsnet thread started January 4, 2019, with about 20 replies, a single parent asked about “super casual dating,” and the top reply answered with a question: “what do you mean by ‘casual’?” (Mumsnet, January 2019). Whoever you are dating may be wondering the same.

On an app, the menus get you part of the way. Tinder’s Relationship Goals began rolling out on December 14, 2022, including in the US, and reached all members by January 5, 2023. The options are “Long-term partner,” “Long-term, open to short,” “Short-term, open to long,” “Short-term fun,” “New friends” and “Still figuring it out” (Tinder, 2022). Hinge’s Dating Intentions, reported on June 23, 2022, offer “life partner,” “long-term,” “long-term, open to short-term,” “short-term, open to long-term,” “short-term” and “figuring out my dating goals” (TechCrunch, 2022). In the English menus as reported then, neither used the word casual. The long-term end of those menus, and the older abbreviation behind it, is on our LTR page.

Bumble’s does. Its Dating Intentions badges, announced April 30, 2024, run from “fun, casual dates” and “intimacy without commitment” to “life partner” and “ethical non-monogamy,” and you can select up to two (Bumble, 2024). What ENM covers is on its own page. Casual dates and intimacy without commitment are separate badges, which is the hookup question answered by a product team.

A label says short-term or long-term. It does not say which of the three casuals you mean. The dating apps hub scores each app on how serious it leans. If the menus have started to wear you out, see dating app burnout.

In person, two sentences cover it, said early and as statements. One line per meaning, each one of ours, not tested at scale:

• Non-exclusive dating: “I’m dating casually right now. I’m seeing other people, and I’m not looking for anything exclusive yet.”
• Regular sex, no relationship: “I’m after something physical, not a relationship, and I’d like you to know that from the start.”
• Taking it slowly: “I’m not seeing anyone else, and I’d like to take this slowly. I’m open to it going somewhere.”

If you hear one of these and want something else, say that in a sentence too. Then you both know which row you are in, or that you are in different ones.

If sex is part of it, testing and protection are part of what you agree, and worth raising again if anything changes.

If it ends, one sentence is enough. What counts as a fade is on ghosting.

What the research says (and is casual dating good or bad?)

Almost all the research we found measures casual sex, not casual dating. Of the explainers we read, Simply Psychology’s is the one that cites studies, and they are studies of hookups and casual sex (Simply Psychology, 2025). The table below, ours, sets the rules you will read against what was measured.

The one study we found that treats casual dating as a relationship status of its own is by Kamp Dush and Amato. Subjective well-being was highest among married people, “followed (in order) by individuals in cohabiting relationships, steady dating relationships, casual dating relationships, and individuals who dated infrequently or not at all” (Kamp Dush & Amato, 2005). The data came from telephone interviews with 691 people in 1992 and 1997 (Cornell Chronicle, 2005). The authors report little support for selection, which a design like this cannot rule out. Our reading: it is a ranking of group averages, and it does not say whether casual dating suits any one person. We did not check whether casual daters differed reliably from people who rarely dated.

Two student studies point at motive and temperament. Vrangalova followed 528 undergraduates over one academic year. Hookups for “non-autonomous reasons,” such as pressure, outside contingencies or no real intent, were linked to lower self-esteem, higher depression and anxiety, and more physical symptoms. Hookups for one’s own reasons were “not linked to any outcomes” (Vrangalova, 2015). Vrangalova and Ong followed single undergraduates through a semester and a year, partly with weekly diaries. Students who scored as sociosexually unrestricted, roughly more at ease with sex outside commitment, reported higher well-being after casual sex than without it. Restricted students showed no difference, which is not the same as harm (Vrangalova & Ong, 2014).

Two surveys point in different directions. Bersamin and colleagues surveyed 3,907 single heterosexual students aged 18 to 25 at 30 US institutions, at a single point in time. Casual sex in the past month went with lower well-being and more psychological distress, and gender did not change the association (Bersamin et al., 2014). Amarakoon and colleagues surveyed adult singles aged 20 to 59, 747 in one study and 483 in a second. About 15% of the first sample and 26% of the second reported sex with casual partners in the past month; the first study ran during the pandemic. They scored lower on attachment avoidance, a trait measure, and higher on sexual satisfaction and self-perceived mate value (Amarakoon et al., 2025; PsyPost, 2026). Neither design can say what casual sex does to anyone, only what it went with.

In a study of 500 college students, emotional reactions after hooking up were “largely more positive than negative,” and the positive ones were related to hope for, and discussion of, a committed relationship (Owen & Fincham, 2011). It is a hookup study, and the second half is the part that carries over to dating.

Casual dating is missing even from the typology of casual sex. Wentland and Reissing describe four types of casual sexual relationship. The typology grew out of focus groups with 23 people aged 18 to 24 (The Fulcrum, 2011), and in a 2014 survey of 885 participants a majority, at least 81%, matched the labels to their definitions (Wentland & Reissing, 2014). Friends with benefits and one night stands are on the list. Casual dating is not.

People also search why men like casual dating. The answer on this page applies to everyone, and the one sex difference we found is a group average: among US adults who had used a dating site or app in the past year, the share of men who called casual sex a major reason was 18 points higher than the share of women, in Pew’s 2022 survey of 951 past-year users (Pew Research Center, 2023). That is a gap between two large groups.

So, good or bad? On this evidence it depends on why you are doing it and whether it suits you. Beyond Kamp Dush and Amato’s ranking, we found no study that measured casual dating itself.

Most of these samples are students, most are American, and most are cross-sectional, so they show what goes together rather than what causes what. Vrangalova’s year-long study and the two waves in Kamp Dush and Amato are the exceptions, and they still report associations.

The phrase itself is older than any app. The earliest use we found is in a 1941 article in the journal Psychiatry on courtship among Polish-American young people, where casual dating is the form “claiming many more of the Polish youth” (Green, 1941). A 1947 book on American society gave the sequence as “casual dating, ‘going steady’ with someone, and engagement” (Pegg, 1947). In 1950 the British magazine Picture Post had someone “no longer available for casual dating” (Picture Post, 1950), and the Manchester Guardian Weekly explained how “casual dating develops into a relationship known as ‘going steady’” (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 1950). Landis’s 1954 manual said that “the period of casual dating gradually gives way to a period of going steady” (Landis, 1954). In the sources we found, casual dating was the first step toward going steady. On the app menus we looked at, the nearest options sit at the short-term end.

The earliest Urban Dictionary entry we could see for the phrase is from October 16, 2005 (Urban Dictionary, 2005). Merriam-Webster and Cambridge define the adjective, not the phrase. Merriam-Webster’s sense is “done without serious intent or commitment,” with “casual sex” as the example (Merriam-Webster). Cambridge has “not regular or fixed,” illustrated with “They were having casual sex, but it never became a serious relationship” (Cambridge Dictionary). Both reach for sex, not dates. We found no dictionary entry for casual dating itself.