I wondered when I read this if what he really meant was "no relationship escalator" - meaning the societal expectation that dating leads to increasingly committed steps which culminate in marriage. There is nothing at all wrong with not wanting to get onto that particular cultural conveyance, but so many people don't seem to know how to have real human connections without that. It's a shame that there isn't more of a template for caring relationships that don't need to be anything other than what they are.