Hobosexuality and the hidden cost of urban love

What looks like fast-tracked romance may actually be financial survival, leaving one partner overburdened

- Divya Naik

One Sunday evening in Bengaluru, Rohit Nair, a 28-year-old IT professional, sat at his dining table staring at the rent receipt. For the past eight months, he had been paying it on his own. His partner, who had moved in after just six weeks of dating, had stopped contributing. "He'd say things like, 'I'll pitch in once work stabilises' or 'You earn more than me anyway,'" Nair recalls. "At first, I brushed it off as temporary. But I began to realise this was the arrangement. I wasn't his partner, I was his provider."

He is not alone in facing this predicament. What initially feels like romance or intimacy can reveal itself to be a pragmatic arrangement: a roof, shared bills, a way to reduce the expenses of urban life. Psychologists and therapists call this "urban hobosexuality," a phenomenon where relationships are entered into, not primarily for love, but for housing or financial security.

While some call it opportunism, experts stress that it's a symptom of urban pressures such as soaring rents, precarious employment, loneliness, and the silence around money in Indian relationships. While these arrangements can begin as survival strategies, they frequently create unhealthy power dynamics that leave one partner emotionally and financially drained.

"High rents, unstable jobs, long commutes—these are not just inconveniences, they're shaping how people approach relationships," says Meghna Singhal, a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and parenting educator from Bengaluru. "When urban living itself creates a scarcity mindset, people start seeing relationships less as a choice and more as a lifeline."

Singhal notes that while cohabitation and financial pooling can be adaptive, they also carry risks. "It's okay for a relationship to ease financial stress. But it has to be conscious. If it's driven only by circumstances, it erodes intimacy. The danger is when the relationship is no longer chosen, but endured."