the bare minimum

“Bare” is the Old English word for naked (opens in a new window), and a bare minimum is a minimum with nothing on it. The phrase has been in print since the early 1800s (opens in a new window) as a plain intensifier: the least that will do, with the weight on least. As a principle it is sound. A relationship with no floor under it can be conducted entirely in favors, and some things ought to be expected without being earned.

The phrase became a format. In a video trend covered by Dazed (opens in a new window) in July 2025, one partner reads out behaviors and the other sorts each into the bare minimum or princess treatment, and a wrong answer is corrected on camera. Items filed under the bare minimum included breakfast in bed, weekly fresh flowers and paying for manicures. The format needs a disagreement to be worth posting, so the list is written to produce one.

Under load, a minimum that is named after the fact can’t be met in advance. Each thing done is absorbed into the floor, and the next has to clear it. The other end of the list keeps its own ledger: anything filed as princess treatment is an extra, itemized and counted. Between them, the 2 columns classify every act in a relationship as owed or as a favor, and leave no category for something done because someone wanted to.

My own minimum was never stated, which made it easy to meet. For 58 days after my first 45-minute drive I asked A. for nothing, and her travel to our dates ran between 5 and 20 minutes each way. On June 17 I named the imbalance in a message, and 11 days later the venue was in the middle. A floor that is announced gets met. The one I kept for 58 days was set at zero, and it was met every time.