Yes, absolutely. But if you’ve caught feelings, obviously that’s different. But make no mistake, there are those of us who can thoroughly enjoy the connection and physicality, but not translate it to anything long term. You have to talk about it. No (healthy) way around that.
There have been a number of quantitative studies done on this topic, your perception is irrelevant unless you’re an epidemiological researcher on this. I was going to link some, but there are SO many. Just spend like 10 seconds searching the academic papers.
Watch out for common-law marriage statutes. A friend of mine got bitten by those - even worse actually because there was no prenup - it just “happened” because of how long they were together.
I prefer to use Brett’s angry dance from Flight of the Conchords.