Is choreromance the future of dating?

In a love culture built around restaurants and grand gestures, a new approach is emerging; one that is simpler, but no less meaningful (Photo: Gemini)

It is 7:30 p.m. in Nairobi’s city centre. Matatus honk and hum as the energised tout calls out for the worn-out office worker looking for a ride home. A young lady weaves her way through the sea of humanity in answer to the tout’s call. Let us call her Annie. Annie is in love and does not want to keep Dave, her fiancé, waiting. She has been looking forward to this evening for weeks. But wait, theirs will not be the usual dating with folks and knives slicing through pieces of well-done steak and wine glasses clinking at one of Nairobi’s fancy restaurants.

The two will spend the early evening at Dave’s house, chopping onions, cutting sukumawiki and stirring ugali. Following the hearty meal, Dave and Annie will head to the kitchen sink, where she will lather the dishes while he rinses and dries them with a piece of cloth, doing all this with laughter before bidding each other goodnight. And this, friends, is dating with a peculiar name, choremance, or a trend where lovebirds turn everyday chores such as shopping, cooking, or cleaning into shared bonding experiences.

The term is quite foreign to a number of those we talked to, more so the men who feel such trends might remove romance from the equation in favour of household chores they feel have been the preserve of women. In patriarchal Africa, the roles between the two genders have always been clear; women are homemakers, men are breadwinners. Period. To them, they would rather stick to the unremarkable scene: women cook, men wait (and eat) without tying an apron and washing or rinsing dishes.

“Si apike na mimi nikuke tu,” retorts Joseph Muoki, an IT specialist who feels some of the so-called romantic antics are being borrowed from the Western world. “Why should I start something I will not be able to sustain? She will have to cook when she gets married to me and I will be busy looking for money to sustain her and the children.”

Muoki, like most men, does not fancy shopping sprees, especially when these are at the behest of his girlfriend. He says women seem to have a natural affinity with shopping, while “my hop to the supermarket can be as brief as five minutes”.

But to women like Annie who cherish intimacy, there is no better way of getting to know their partners than sharing such chores. This is love that defies the African stereotypical society where the man barely handles certain chores within a household, preferring to call the shots at an entertainment joint. Handling domestic chores as a means of romantic expression was foreign.

Psychology Today says choremance is a barometer to measure how committed your partner is, as opposed to dating in fancy locations where pretence can blur such reality. Choremance removes any filters and gives a realistic view of how a future with your partner will really look when that stake becomes rare and the wine runs out.

It says: “It may be easy to maintain a fancy facade while both of you are at a fancy restaurant or silently staring at a theatre screen. But through chores, you can see how both of you handle a little work and potential challenges like figuring out where the heck that blow-off valve is. You can see who a person really is; for example, helpful, adaptable, and resourceful versus selfish, inflexible, and easily frazzled.”

Joyce Wangari, a clothes vendor in the city, says she loves being at home over the weekends and was happy when her partner said he appreciates home-made meals. “He would eat and clean after himself. This made it seem less like a chore and more of a partnership,” she says.

Wangari, who is looking forward to getting married, says there is more stability in the relationship when both parties do domestic chores together before a marriage as opposed to the “feel good” dining out factor or endless excursions out of town.

“The relationship felt more structured and mature,” says Wangari, whose previous relationship was not as compact as the current one. We would stay in more as opposed to going out. It helped that we were both ‘homebodies’ and had a shared love for staying indoors as opposed to always going out. Perhaps it is something that comes with age, who knows.”

Wangari says her stay-at-home dating strategy has borne fruit since she gets undivided attention from her partner, who would otherwise be distracted if most of the dating were done outdoors, where friends are easily accessible.

“I thrive in solitude and so sometimes going out can feel like a hard chore and my partner understood this about me,” she says. “And of course, being home together means having your partner with you with undivided attention, which, in my opinion, can strengthen the bond you share.”

Wangari notes that while they still enjoy occasional dates, most of their time is spent indoors after the honeymoon phase fades.

This shift reflects a new dating trend where shared chores become acts of intimacy, challenging traditional gender roles and turning everyday tasks into moments of connection.