Last updated on December 8, 2024
Beware of the newest contagious disease: situationships. Symptoms may include a lack of defined commitment, inconsistent communication, and physical connection without emotional depth. Use precautions to prevent spread: wear a mask, self-isolate, and stay away from emotionally unavailable people. Here’s a deep dive into the bizarre world of situationships.
While reading, listen to: “Clean” – Taylor Swift
A couple months ago, I was involved in a situation where I didn’t even know what I meant to the person. I couldn’t figure out what we were for the life of me; colleagues, friends, lovers… And to be completely transparent, I still have no idea. We would spend hours on the phone, but we wouldn’t hold hands in front of other people. We would talk about the most intimate and personal things, but we wouldn’t talk about the future. It was all very confusing and frustrating. I felt like I was going crazy. Imagine my surprise when I came across people on social media talking about similar experiences and calling them “situationships” instead of relationships. And honestly, it is a very fitting name. It is a situation where you do anything two people in a relationship would do, but you never put a label on it. Sounds like a terrible idea (which it genuinely is), but it is more common than you know. An angel dies every single time a situationship is born, and there are more dead ones than alive right now.
Let’s get this straight: a situationship is a cowardly version of a relationship.
It’s scary to trust someone enough to get into a relationship. To lean on someone, to love. This is why we created situationships where you benefit from all the good sides of being in a relationship but avoid commitment. You get to have sex without taking her to dinner. You get to date him without calling him your boyfriend. So, how do people get caught in this trap?
It all starts with a crush. You meet in a coffee shop, in school, on the bus. (The location doesn’t matter, situationships can catch you anywhere.) You start seeing each other, and it feels like the kind of flame that might burn you if you get too close. (Indeed, it does. But I am getting ahead of myself.) After a while, you get so into them that it’s like the most transcendent, otherworldly kind of passion. Now, there are two different ways for the situationship to manifest itself:
In the first scenario: one random Wednesday… BOOM. You are faced with that God-awful text message: “I like you and you’re great, but I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.” This one confuses you because why would they look at you like that, hold you like that when they knew you’re not what they wanted all along? Why would they play with your feelings and throw you aside like a used tissue? Just… why? It is impossible to know what went through their heads. Maybe they were just not that into you and didn’t know how to turn you down, maybe they changed their mind about you at the last minute… Regardless, it hurts. It hurts so much that you can physically feel the pain in your heart sometimes.
And in the second scenario: they don’t even show you the decency of letting you down slowly. They just stop responding, stop calling, stop picking up. Now this scenario is INFURIATING. You are left incredibly confused about what it was that you two had. Was it love, or was it just friendship? Was it anything at all? You wonder and wonder and wonder… to no avail. There is sadly no answer to this question and you will never know if they actually liked you. If this ever happened to you, just know: I am out here carrying the same confusion and hurt as you do. It takes such a long time to be able to come to terms with what happened that it’s double the amount of time you spent with them. But when you do get over it… Just like that, gone is any trace of them. You are finally clean. Does that mean you will never think of them again? I can confidently say “No” based on my experience. They come back to you from time to time, but it does eventually get better. You start to forget. Trust me, you do.
In both scenarios, the spark is unable to turn into a relationship. The miserable concept of situationships has gotten you. See a doctor or visit your local emergency room. You have been infected.
So what do we do after surviving a situationship? We keep fighting to find that spark again. We keep trying until we find someone who can reciprocate the feeling. Because they do exist. They must. All of these rom-coms and love poems cannot be for nothing. Real love exists, it’s just hard to find. But then again, nothing worth having is easy. It takes effort and that’s what makes it special. People make an effort when they want to. You just have to find someone who will find you worthy of fighting for.
Last summer during a visit to Vienna, I found a wall in a museum with a question written at the top: “Wofür lohnt es sich zu kämpfen?” It translates to “What is worth fighting for?” There were hundreds of post-its beneath the question for people to write their answers. One in particular caught my eye. It said, “My darling wife Debbie, who turns my darkest nights into the brightest mornings.” That one touched me very deeply. Debbie and her lovely husband who wrote this post-it on a wall in Vienna were in love, and they didn’t have to worry about unreturned texts and unanswered calls. Situationships are not worth wasting time in a world of Debbie’s and her husband’s. We have to keep looking until we find the person who would think of their love for us when asked what they would fight for. Someone who would consider us even in a random museum in Vienna, on a post-it which we would possibly never see. Someone who would not be shy to shout out their love from rooftops and on post-its.
And to that person who left me in the dark when I gave them my brightest mornings: Gone is any trace of you, I think I am finally clean.
With love,
Lara