The Ultimatum shows that young people are shying away from monogamy in a world of endless choice

I wish I hadn’t liked The Ultimatum. I wish I’d watched one episode, denounced it for the truly toxic viewing it so clearly is, and got on with my life.

But eight episodes later – with the much-anticipated finale and inevitable reunion, airing today, to come – here we are.

Reader, I devoured it. Practically whole, like a python dislocating its jaw to eat an entire human. (Which, come to think of it, is as good a metaphor as any for the relationship between the show’s producers and its unsuspecting participants.)

If you haven’t seen the latest Netflix reality sensation, here is the horrific premise: it takes a bunch of couples, where one partner is ready to get married while the other is not. The former has issued an ultimatum – marry me or lose me (or “sh*t or get off the pot”, if we’re being crass). To “assist” in the decision-making process, the six pairs – all young, fit and largely attractive – get to meet each other, date one another – and then pick someone else’s other half to live with for three weeks in a “trial marriage”. Having spent time with a new, shiny person – someone they haven’t had time to get bored of or be annoyed by yet, someone whose irritating habit of leaving the washing up for 10 days has yet to be discovered – they then move back in with their original partner for three weeks. At the end of this cohabitation period, they make a decision: marry their original partner; potentially marry the random person they met a month ago; or leave the “experiment” alone.

Spoiler alert: this does not go well for any of the original pairings. Funnily enough, taking a relationship that clearly already has some underlying cracks – hence the ultimatum being issued in the first place – and tossing in temptation in the form of sexy alternative options, does not seem to create stable couples. Who knew? (Well, apart from every relationship counsellor ever, plus anyone with a modicum of common sense or emotional intelligence.)

As abhorrent as it is, this OF COURSE all makes for great TV. The pain, the drama, the jeopardy of the high-stakes final decision: inject it directly into my veins, please. But aside from being addictive trash telly, I can’t help but think the entire premise speaks to a deeper underlying trend when it comes to relationships and young people: a reticence to settle down with one partner forever; and perhaps a shying away from monogamy entirely, in a culture where another swipe can always bring a potentially better option.

“Younger people are increasingly less likely to want to settle down as they’re valuing life-experiences over the traditional monogamy home set up,” agrees relationship expert psychologist and sex therapist Tatyana Dyachenko.

“Gen Z are certainly more pragmatic when it comes to sex, love and relationships than previous generations. They’re also having less sex compared to millennials and gen X.”

And it really is Gen Z we’re talking about when it comes to The Ultimatum. The couples on this hell-show are young. Painfully so. Every single person on the programme bar one is under 30, with most in their early to mid-twenties. One might argue, in that case, that it’s no wonder that half of the contestants have pre-emptive cold feet. But it goes deeper than that, argues Tatyana.

“Gen Z are more likely to find a partner that fulfills a certain need at a certain point in their life. They are not necessarily looking for long-term relationships,” she says. “Gen Z are less committed to finding a long-term partner than previous generations.”

She’s also seen a rise in both millennials and Gen Z engaging in consensual polyamorus relationships which include multiple partners; “Some are calling it a sexual revolution that has not been seen since the Sixties,” she adds.

The reason for this more relaxed view on relationships? It could in part be down to the unstable and unpredictable future facing young people as they contemplate the threat of climate change, struggle with financial instability and process the ever-changing goalposts presented by Covid-19, argues Tatyana.

“Generation Z is putting more emphasis on getting themselves on a solid footing before entering into a relationship with another person or persons,” she says.

But the rise in dating apps also has a part to play in Gen Z’s dating habits. Tatyana calls these apps “a tool that empower the younger generation to express their wants and desires in a very clear format, meaning they are less likely to compromise. They are more confident within themselves than previous generations and are less likely to settle for anything less than they believe they deserve.”

However, on the flipside, apps make it harder to pick one person and stick with them – a phenomenon sometimes called “decision fatigue”, “choice overload” or “decision paralysis”.

American psychologist and professor of social theory Barry Schwartz says in his book The Paradox of Choice: “If we’re rational, [social scientists] tell us, added options can only make us better off as a society. This view is logically compelling, but empirically it isn’t true.”

In fact, we get stressed out if too many choices are laid out in front of us – whether it be types of jam, pension options, or potential romantic partners. And, even when we do choose, “we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from,” argues Schwartz. “I think dating sites are now the most common path for meeting romantic partners, and the overwhelming amount of choice that dating sites have created is a real problem.”

Whether this new-found sense of choice is a boon or a blight when it comes to modern dating may just be a matter of perspective. But in the case of our sweet, twenty-somethings on The Ultimatum – who by rights should be off somewhere making bad decisions and vomiting in their own handbags after a night out – I can’t help but think this trend for putting off settling down might just be the healthiest decision any of them could make.