when does a situation become a situationship?
forehead kisses, holding hands in IKEA, movie marathons, Sunday mornings, day-trips, and playing house...
Since making my debut on the SE1 dating scene, I’ve been grappling with the delicate boundaries that often constitute casual dating. At what point does a situation – a casual encounter with “no strings attached” – become a situationship? Can we pre-empt this turning point? Can we nip it in the pseudo-romantic bud? The eco-system of hook-up culture is volatile and unpredictable; the way out is the never the same way you came in and it’s easy to get lost in this labyrinth of “you up”s and morning-afters.
Defining situationships
Frustratingly, this particular kind of relationship is defined by being undefined. Situationships are label-averse. They are characterised primarily by a lack of clarity and direct communication which all-too-often breeds confusion and anxiety for all parties involved.
The word itself didn’t enter our vernacular until Summer 2019, via Love Island USA star Alana, who used the word in reference to her woeful dating history. So, it was a reality dating show which came to the rescue and finally provided us with a word for those relationships which aren’t really relationships (but also sort of are… actually).
As part of my “research” for this piece, I googled ‘situationship’ and was met with a mess of definitions:
‘a romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established.’ (Oxford Languages).
‘Let’s just chill, have sex, and be confused on the fact that we are not together but have official emotions for each other.’ (Urban Dictionary’s most liked definition of the term).
‘A situationship is that space between a committed relationship and something that is more than a friendship.’ (a psychotherapist for NBC news).
The words ‘formal,’ ‘official’ and ‘committed’ exist in these definitions to define situationships not by what they are, but precisely what they aren’t. Because situationships are so like relationships, they may only be defined in relation and in contrast to them. A situationship cannot exist in its own right – it must etymologically and in-practice sit tangentially alongside “real” relationships.
The formality of relationships necessitates certain introductions; you instigate meetings between your significant other and your friends and family. The officiality of relationships entails labels; you refer to one another as my “girlfriend,” “boyfriend” or “partner.” The commitment of a relationship might equate to “exclusivity” or to dedicating a mutually agreed upon amount of time to each other.
I could spend over a thousand words on the nuances of situationships versus relationships, but I’m not convinced I would reach a satisfying conclusion. Such is the nature of the conversations that take place around and within situationships. We waltz inelegantly around the prospect of romance and labels with someone who was supposed to be a casual fling.
My first situationship
My first official “situationship” predates word itself. It was a fairly earth-shattering experience; a pseudo-romantic encounter which took place over the course of three months concluded with me crying on the floor of my college’s common-room as friends brought me biscuits and patted me sympathetically, unsure on how to comfort me through this break-up which wasn’t really a break-up as we were never really “together.”
I had met this boy in my first year of uni; I was freshly out of my long-term relationship and crying alone in a club-booth (my sobs mostly drowned out by the pulsing R&B) on Valentine’s Day, no less. He nervously approached me, as though I were a wounded, but potentially dangerous animal, to see if I was okay. I couldn’t hear him over all the Eminem, so we moved our conversation onto my phone’s notes app.
I’m not trying to be weird of anything, it’s just that you looked a bit sad before, and I’ve been a bit sad recently, and I felt like it was just nice to have someone to talk to about it
And thus began a whirlwind situationship between two English undergraduates, both of whom were fresh out of their high-school relationships and totally unprepared for the world of casual dating.
We went home together that night. I took him on my “alternative route,” scaling the fences of University Parks and sprinting hand-in-hand through damp fields towards my first-year room. The sex wasn’t great, but that didn’t matter; he liked (some of) the things I liked and was kind to me in my very public moment of vulnerability. The morning after he introduced me to his favourite falafel place and we ate our wraps, perched on the “Rad Cam,” a famously stunning university library.
Of course, this situation rapidly escalated into a full-blown situationship. We read poetry together, trespassed together, did the crossword together, engaged in a full-frontal “gravy fight” together. I gatecrashed his college parties, I perched on the front of his bicycle as we navigated Oxford’s narrow cobbled streets and – after a matter of weeks – I visited him at his family home in Manchester.
We did not commit to each other. We did not communicate effectively with each other. We simply frolicked into this chaotic but thrilling ‘thing’ – which has arguably been one of the most romantic encounters I’ve had to date.
Upon our return to Oxford for the beginning of our summer term, things rapidly began to unravel. I started getting with and dating other people. Once – and I’m not proud of this – I went as far as getting with someone in front of him. I didn’t know (but I should have guessed) he was at the same event as me, otherwise I would have waited for us to conveniently bump into each other at the bar.
I caught his eye as I pulled away from this other guy and – without thinking – winked at him. Later in the night, I sheepishly approached him at the bar and he, quite rightly, looked me in the eye and said, “fuck you.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t apologise. We weren’t together and neither of us had expressed that we had any kind of feelings for each other. But that doesn’t change the fact that we had been behaving like two people who were very much in love.
I shattered the rosy illusion of our could-be-relationship with this kiss. He started sleeping with other people and told me about it with a similarly cruel nonchalance that I’d loaded into that wink. Eventually, he met someone else who he developed more serious feelings for. She was way less online and, by extension, way cooler than me.
I was devastated, and perplexed by my devastation. He had never been my boyfriend – but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t count him as my ex.
This seems to be the way most situationships play out… You refuse to come together until one or both of you cracks and either ends things or ends up with someone else – someone who is looking for a relationship.
“Holding hands in IKEA”
When I think about situationships, I think about one of my favourite films 500 Days of Summer and the scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Romantic character (rightly or wrongly) yells at Zooey Deschanel’s commitment-phobic rendition of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. After a disastrous date-night, Tom opens up the dreaded “what are we?” dialogue, Summer stammers “we’re just… friends,” which prompts Tom to deliver one of my all-time favourite lines:
“Kissing in the copy room, holding hands in IKEA, shower sex?! Come on, friends my balls.”
What plays out between Tom and Summer is a brilliant example of a situationship. They engage in the above couple-y activities, despite Summer’s clear objection to relationships. I used to think Tom was unreasonable for blowing up like he does at Summer, but – having been through a few situationships – I sympathise with his frustration.
Because there is something jarring about a disconnect between what you say you are versus what you actually are in practice. We want people to behave in the ways we expect them to. We want them to exist within the neatly compartmentalised boxes we put them in. We don’t want forehead kisses from our casual shags, we don’t want prolonged eye-contact and emotional intimacy from the people we’re just looking for a physical connection with.
When does a situation become a situationship?
A situation can become a situationship at any given moment. There is no way to quantify or predict this development. As soon as you’ve had the “no, I don’t want a relationship either – casual suits me just fine!” conversation but are still watching tv together, texting all the time and playing house, then you’re probably in a situationship. You might like – maybe even love – each other, but things are complicated and so a relationship remains firmly off the table.
You don’t know if each of you is sleeping with other people and you’re probably too afraid to ask. People (men, especially) make the mistake of taking the lack of label a little too literally. They claim not to “owe” their situationship anything and subsequently treat the person-they’re-sleeping-with as though they’re a mere blip on their radar, not a huge part of their life. Kissing someone else in front of my own situationship all those years ago is a good example of such tactless behaviour.
We weren’t “together,” so “technically” I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But relationships aren’t built on technicalities. Whilst labels help us to establish boundaries and expectations, you can’t squash real feelings – “official emotions” – by slapping the word “situationship” on whatever’s going on between two people.
So be nice to your situationships. Treat them with the level of respect you’d expect from a partner – seen as you’re probably acting like one. Or at least until you’re ready to do so, I’d steer clear of forehead kisses, book exchanges, Sunday mornings and marathons of your favourite tv show. I’d keep it casual until you’re ready for the formality, officiality and commitment getting serious warrants.