Scroll through dating profiles for long enough and a pattern emerges. People describing themselves as "open to something casual but also open to something serious." People who want to keep things relaxed but wouldn't rule out a relationship if the right person came along. People who genuinely don't know what they want, and are honest enough to say so. It is one of the most common self-descriptions in modern dating, and it's often treated as a red flag, and seen as a sign of emotional unavailability, a hedge, a way of keeping options open at someone else's expense.
The science says these desires can, in fact, coexist. For decades, psychology treated the desire for casual sex and the desire for a committed relationship as opposite ends of a single spectrum. You were either someone who wanted connection and commitment, or someone who wanted freedom and novelty. The idea that you could genuinely want both, independently and at the same time, was largely dismissed as confusion or avoidance.
More recent research has started to dismantle that assumption. A 2024 study found that motivations for casual sex and motivations for long-term partnership are better understood as two separate psychological dimensions rather than opposing forces. In other words, having a strong desire for casual intimacy does not necessarily mean having a weak desire for commitment, and vice-versa. The two can operate independently, and for a significant number of people, both are genuinely present at the same time.
This matters because it validates something a lot of people already know about themselves but feel embarrassed to admit: That wanting something fun and uncomplicated right now and being open to something deeper with the right person are not contradictory positions. They are just two different things happening simultaneously in the same human being.
This shift in understanding is showing up in how people date. Research into 2026 dating trends found that nearly half of survey respondents are open to parallel relationships; that is, having one person meet their physical needs and another meet their emotional needs. Whether or not that is everyone's ideal, it points to a broader cultural movement toward flexibility and honesty about what different connections are actually for, rather than forcing every encounter into a single predetermined shape.
The dating profile that says "open to casual, open to serious" is not exactly hedging. It is, at its most honest, a person acknowledging that they are available to connection in multiple forms, and that the form it takes will depend on the person they meet, the timing, and what develops naturally.
Here is the honest part. Holding both desires simultaneously is legitimate, but it requires a level of self-awareness and communication that not everyone brings to the table. The problem is not wanting both things, it’s pretending to want one when you actually want the other, or assuming the person you are seeing wants the same thing you do without ever asking.
The "casualness" of a casual connection does not eliminate the need for honesty. If anything, it raises the stakes, because without the structure of a defined relationship, the only thing managing expectations is the conversation you have had. And if you have not had that conversation clearly and explicitly, you are both operating on assumptions that may not match.
This is where a lot of casual connections go sideways. Not because someone wanted more than the other person, but because neither person was ever really clear about what they wanted in the first place with themselves or with their partner.
Before you can be honest with someone else about what you want, you have to be honest with yourself. And that is harder than it sounds, particularly when what you want is genuinely ambiguous or in flux.
Some useful questions to sit with:
Are you actually open to something developing, or are you telling yourself that to avoid feeling like you are settling?
Are you genuinely happy with something casual, or are you tolerating it because you think it is all that is available right now?
Would you be okay if the person you are seeing casually started seeing someone else seriously?
These are not trick questions. They are just the ones that help you figure out where you actually are, rather than where you think you should be.
HUD App was built for exactly this territory. The app is upfront about being a space for casual connection, which means everyone who shows up has opted into that framing and is, at minimum, open to it. That kind of shared context removes a layer of ambiguity that makes a lot of dating unnecessarily difficult.
But "open to casual" is not the same as "only casual, forever, no matter what." A lot of HUD App users are genuinely enjoying what a casual connection offers, while remaining open to something more if the chemistry and the circumstances align. That is a valid and mature way to approach dating, provided the people involved are talking about it honestly.
You do not need to have a defining-the-relationship conversation on the first date. But you do need to be able to say, when it becomes relevant, what you are actually looking for and what you are open to. That might look like: "I’m really enjoying this and I’m not looking for anything serious right now, but I’m also not ruling anything out." It might look like checking in after a few weeks of seeing someone to see whether you are both still on the same page.
What it should not look like is silence in the hope that things will just naturally resolve themselves into whatever you secretly want them to be. That is the strategy most likely to leave someone hurt, and it is usually the person who was clearer about what they wanted from the start.
Wanting something casual and being open to something more is not a contradiction, it’s just humanness. The only thing it requires is the self-awareness to know which one you are feeling at any given moment, and the honesty to say so, both to yourself and to anyone you’re seeing.
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