Parallel Dating: How Connection Changed in the Era of Hustle Culture and Loneliness

Words: Iole Dexter

There are two main factors that largely dictate my friendships: proximity and practicality. This might make me sound cold. I’m not – I love my friends. But I am guilty of drifting apart from those who aren’t easily factored into my schedule.

Arguably this is simply becoming an adult. You only have to open TikTok to see millions of likes on thousands of videos with the same premise: friends swiping through their phone calendars with captions like ‘at the end of our hangouts we always have to plan the next one, otherwise we don't see each other for months’ or ‘pov making plans in your 20s’. We all have jobs, relationships, maybe pets, maybe kids, hobbies, dreams, side hustles, passion projects, family commitments, and are being force-fed the importance of getting an unfathomable amount of protein into our diets and making time for ‘self-care.’ It’s no surprise that many of us find giving our undivided attention to friends and partners at the moments in between increasingly difficult.

Introducing ‘parallel dating’ – spending time with our loved ones while each doing our own thing. Together but separate, intimacy but efficient, connection while feeling ‘productive.’ Most of us probably don’t even realise we’re doing it. It’s the convergence of two significant cultural moments: hustle or ‘busyness’ culture and the loneliness epidemic.

A recent BUPA report revealed that 40% of Gen Z employees feel lonely working from home, and across all industries, 45% of younger staff said they were considering jobs with more potential for face-to-face interaction. At the same time, the pressure to grind is constantly rising. 
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Everyone and their nan seems to have a side-hustle in 2025, either a labour of love, a dream that one day that side gig will become the main, or a means of extra income to survive the squeeze of Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. A survey by Finder found 39% of Brits have a side hustle as an additional income source in 2025, with Gen Z (61%) and Millennials (55%) the most likely demographics to have one. Whether we want to, or because we need to, we are relentlessly chasing ‘success,’ trying to find meaning in the permanent pursuit of working toward something. I’m complicit, and brainwashed: I always feel I should be doing more and that I’ll never have enough time to do everything I want to achieve in life – and my self-worth is undoubtably rooted in how ‘productive’ I am (and that’s on Capitalist indoctrination).

This year both me and my partner’s side hustles became our main source of income. Both being self-employed has increased how much time we spend in bed together with our laptops, scheduling, planning, invoicing, doing the boring admin that needs to be done, but making the effort to do so side by side, which makes it more palatable. I’m the same with my friends – I am dealing with a very busy group of girls. A lot of the time we are co-working, last minute texting each other with an invite to the yoga class we’re already booked into or planning a girly evening to decompress with a tea and silent scrolling on Pinterest. While I am with my partner and friends a lot, could being physically together actually be keeping us further apart?

“Ultimately ‘parallel hanging’ is a compromise, a temporary solution to making time for friends, partners, family rather than being a sustainable way of creating and strengthening our relationships.”

I used to work with someone I really liked, but despite saying we should hang out 1:1 or outside of the staff room, we never did. We were in the same social circle, so were friends by proxy. But I’d always question whether the label of ‘friend’ was legitimate. This went on for nearly three years until we both left the company and began working in remote roles. We live locally to one another, so started going to the same cafés to co-work, eyes glued to our screens, typing in silence. Sometimes she’d invite me over to her home and she’d sit at her dining table, headphones on, in back-to-back meetings while I let her sofa swallow me whole, laptop balanced on my knees. Occasionally we’d look over at each other, smile, laugh or roll our eyes. A lot of the time we’d be quiet all day, but the comfort of each other’s presence was enough to ease the urge to start convulsing at the mention of a colleague wanting to ‘circle back’ or ‘take this offline.’ The familiarity of seeing her every day made me feel much closer to her. It felt very easy. And that’s because it was. Not only were we living a similar life: same hours, same area, same needs, same budget, but every time we hung out there was no pressure to maintain a conversation, to entertain or be conscious of coming across as ‘interesting’ or ‘interested.’ We were just being.

These low-pressure companionships have their benefits – in a climate where we’re all forced to compete in the Busy Olympics, surely, it’s better we factor our relationships into the madness, even if we can’t always give each other our undivided attention than not at all? I’d like to give us all grace here, the dire economic climate and job crisis isn’t exactly creating conditions for human connection to take priority and flourish – speaking from experience, sometimes prioritising extra income over plans with loved ones isn’t even a choice. But when possible, if we can combine the two, what’s the harm in that?

Well, physical proximity doesn’t automatically equate to emotional closeness. Ultimately ‘parallel hanging’ is a compromise, a temporary solution to making time for friends, partners, family rather than being a sustainable way of creating and strengthening our relationships. UK psychotherapist, Fe Robinson notes that people can feel lonely inside relationships when their emotional needs and meaningful communication are missing, and clinicians warn that proximity creates the opportunity for intimacy but does not automatically produce it: of course, emotional engagement and communication will always be vital ingredients. Although, in a study that assessed the connection between loneliness and physical contact, touch was found to reduce feelings of isolation. So if you’re already feeling the Monday blues, enlisting a friend to work shoulder-to-shoulder for a little physical interaction, even if you both need to mentally lock in, might turn a bad day into at least an OK one.

Sure, “parallel dating” is imperfect, maybe even a little sad? But it shows we’re trying. We stubbornly refuse to give up on closeness, even in a world that leaves us too tired, broke, and busy to prioritise it. Obviously, our loved ones aren’t pieces to be slotted into our puzzles – maybe the real issue is the table we’re building on, misshapen by capitalism and grind culture, and perhaps until it’s flipped over, we’ll be stuck trying to make the impossible fit.