The New York Times has alerted readers to a new relationship buzzword: “attention infidelity”. Coined by public opinion researcher Daniel Cox in a new book on the “crisis of human connection”, the term describes failing to focus fully on your partner because you are indulging in what the NYT calls, rather judgily, “the banal distraction of dead-eyed scrolling”.
Why the Buzzword Proliferation?
This summer, there was debate around what constitutes “microcheating”; last year, I read about women “quiet quitting” relationships; the “mental load” has been striking chords for a couple of years, with its companion concept of “weaponised incompetence”. It’s reminiscent of the proliferation of negative phrases around work that emerged post-pandemic – resenteeism, fauxductivity, coffee badging, polygamous working (quiet quitting, of course, also originated in the work context). Maybe it reflects the fact that relationships are also (hard) work, or maybe we just love a bit of pop psychology.
Inventing New Terms
Assuming it’s the second, I’ve been trying to think up other highbrow phrases to conceptualise the age-old business of being a bit of a dick to your partner, so that I can turn them into a book myself. So far, I’ve invented “cultural pre-emption betrayal” (sneaky solo viewing of the next episode of a show you’re watching together), “premium resource caching” (hiding good food), “semi-hostile infantilising” (telling your partner how to do something with the exaggerated patience you’d show a two-year-old) and “fiscal obfuscation” (when you say something was “not very dear” when it was, in fact, very dear).
I reckon some of these may have legs, but I’ve had to stop for now, because my husband wants to tell me about our energy tariff – time to demonstrate some attention fidelity.
