A reference to Taylor Hebert from Wildbow's "Worm" Alia 'Skitter', 'Weaver', K̵͚͕͈̺̖̈́͂́͝͝ê ͍̠̹̳̬̂̍̾̕̕þ̵̣̟̲̹̆̃̉͛̀͜h ͕͔̭͉͛̈́͒̆͘ͅṛ̴̨̣̗͕͂̄̉̌̌ï ͍̮̺͕̹́̑͂͐̉
A God once tried to kill Skitter. I don't see any gods around here, do you?
Yes, the queen of escalation escalated against god. And won.
Once, the queen of escalation tried to deescalate and surrendered to the lawful authorities. Over the next twelve hours, she killed one of the most powerful heroes in the world and a decorated military officer, and forced the evacuation of a square mile of city. She got a medal for it.
The social expectation that a romantic relationship should automatically follow a set of steps and lead to marriage, parenthood, and home ownership. This term is used primarily by people who want to get "off the escalator," who want to judge the success of relationships by criteria other than how smoothly and automatically the relationship gets more serious.
One sample template is "Meet someone > Dating > Sex > Move in together > Get married > Have kids"
Doing these things out of order is being off the relationship escalator: if you have sex on a first date, many people think your relationship can't, or shouldn't, eventually become more serious. If you move in with someone, moving back out again usually means that the relationship is over. Being polyamorous or participating in other kinds of non-monogamy is also being off the relationship escalator.
We broke up because he wanted to be on the relationship escalator, and I prefer to live alone.
Your dating profile suggests you're not on the relationship escalator, so you need to explain specifically what you're looking for.