We all love a 'chill guy' – someone supportive, understanding, flexible, and easygoing, happy to try the restaurants you want to try, follow your lead on where to visit during your next holiday, and sit through whichever movie you want to watch. But an easygoing nature doesn't always equate to less friction in a relationship. Men's coach Alessandro Frosali explained in a now-viral video that while at the start of a relationship, a lack of arguments and friction can feel comforting, being 'easygoing' starts to look like low effort eventually.
The 'Plastic Bag Theory' Explained
“It means that you don’t initiate, you don’t plan things, right? You just go with the flow, and you kind of wait for her to make all the plans in the relationship,” Frosali says in the video. “Behaviourally, you might just say, ‘I don’t really have an opinion’, ‘I don’t mind, whatever you want’, ‘I’ll just go with’. But what that practically feels like to a woman is like living with a man who has the spine of a flaccid plastic bag going down the river. There’s nothing really to hold it up, it just goes along.”
Dubbed the 'plastic bag theory', this means that what feels like letting your partner take the lead can eventually look like all pressure surrounding decisions, ideas, and plans falling on their shoulders.
When Flexibility Just Adds Pressure
“If you’re not bringing direction into the relationship, it can create an imbalance. One person is planning, deciding, and initiating, and the other is just along for the ride,” Frosali said.
Dating coach Sera Bozza said “every relationship falls into a dynamic”. “At its best, it’s adult – adult. Two people with agency, preferences, and shared responsibility. But when one person consistently defers, it shifts into parent – child … One person takes on the role of organiser, decision-maker, and emotional regulator, and the other becomes passive, waiting to be guided … And that dynamic kills attraction over time,” Ms Bozza told Body+Soul.
But let’s not rush to dub the 'plastic bag' partner the ultimate red flag or a guarantee that your relationship will fail just yet. It’s not a nice feeling to realise that what you thought was keeping the peace, being easygoing, limiting conflict, and simply being happy to do whatever your partner wants is actually causing them more stress.
How to Ask for More Effort in Your Relationship
Thankfully, a person is not doomed to be a 'plastic bag' forever. “Most passive partners aren’t indifferent, just conflict-avoidant,” Ms Bozza said. “They don’t trust their own preferences enough to express them, so they minimise themselves to stay accepted. ‘Whatever you want’ becomes a strategy to avoid rejection.”
“But that creates a dependency loop … The more you defer, the more the other person leads … The more they lead, the less space there is for you to show up … And eventually, they feel burdened, and you feel invisible.”
“You break that by tolerating the discomfort of having a preference,” she said. “Start small: ‘I want.’ ‘I prefer.’ ‘I’d rather do this.’ No over-explaining. Let there be a bit of tension. That’s what reintroduces agency, and it’s what allows your partner to relate to you as an equal, not manage you as a responsibility.”
Ms Bozza said you can break the 'plastic bag' cycle “by tolerating the discomfort of having a preference”.
And if you’re the one who fears you’re with a 'plastic bag partner'? It might be time to broach the topic without casting blame, says Bozza. “A good approach is to separate what’s happening from the story you’ve built around it”, Mr Bozza said. “Something like: ‘The story I’m telling myself is that I’m carrying most of the planning and decision-making between us, and it’s starting to feel exhausting.’”
“That language keeps you accountable for your interpretation instead of presenting it as fact, which keeps the conversation open. From there, you shift it into shared responsibility. Not ‘be better,’ but ‘be more involved.’ You’re asking them to take ownership of part of the relationship instead of outsourcing it.” Perhaps leaving the plastic bag in the recycling bin where it belongs.
