Situationship: Definition, Signs, and How To Get Out

What it means

A situationship is a romantic or sexual entanglement without the structure of a relationship. You're more than friends. You're less than partners. No agreed exclusivity, no intro to her family as the girlfriend, no plans past next month. But there's also enough, regular sex, regular contact, the occasional Sunday breakfast, that you can't quite call it nothing either.

The word showed up around 2017 and went mainstream a few years later, mostly because there wasn't a word for what was already happening to almost everyone under 35. Dating used to be a path: meet, date, exclusive, serious, married. Now it's a state, and the state is "undefined."

What it looks like

No single signature, but these show up in nearly every one:

• You see each other regularly but make plans week to week, never further out.
• Months of intimacy and neither of you has used the words "boyfriend" or "girlfriend."
• The apps are still on her phone. Maybe yours too.
• You can text all day, but trips, weddings, and holidays are off-limits.
• Her friends know you exist, but you've never been introduced as "the guy she's dating."
• Mention the future and the temperature in the room drops a few degrees.

Three or more of those feel familiar? Congratulations, you're in one.

Why situationships happen

A few real forces are doing the work here.

Optionality without a cost. The apps make it cheap to keep options open. Commitment closes options, so people don't commit. Simple math, bad outcome.

Dodging the conversation. The DTR talk, define the relationship, is one of the few genuinely uncomfortable moments in modern dating, and plenty of people would rather coast six months than spend fifteen minutes being uncomfortable.

Lopsided investment. Usually one person wants more and the other is happy with the status quo. The one who wants more won't push, scared of losing what they've got. The comfortable one won't push because, well, why would they.

Real ambivalence. Sometimes she likes you fine but isn't sure. Letting time decide is easier than deciding.

None of these fix themselves. Situationships don't graduate into relationships through inertia. They get defined, or they expire. There's no third thing that happens on its own.

Are you actually in one, or just dating?

There's a real difference between "we haven't had the talk because it's been three weeks" and "we haven't had the talk because it's been seven months." First one's normal. Second one's the situationship.

Two questions that cut through it:

• If she met someone tomorrow she liked more, would she feel any pull to tell you first?
• If you started seeing someone else, would she be hurt, or would she just quietly opt out?

Don't know the answer to either? You're in a situationship. Related, if she's gone cold lately, that might be its own thing, see this.

How to get out

Two exits. Exactly two. Define it, or end it. There is no secret third door no matter how long you stare at the wall.

The DTR conversation is shorter and lower-stakes than your brain is screaming. In person, when neither of you is rushed: "I've been enjoying this. I also want to know where it's going, because I'm not trying to be in something undefined for another six months. Are we heading somewhere, or staying like this?"

Then you shut up and let her answer.

She says "I want what you want," great, you're dating. She says anything else, any flavor of "I'm not ready" or "can't we just enjoy it," she's told you. Believe her the first time, not the fifth.

The honest part

The hard part was never the conversation. It's leaving after the conversation when the answer isn't the one you wanted. You'll be tempted to read a soft no as a maybe and stay. Every month you do that compounds. The girl you'd actually be happy with is on an app right now, and you're not, because you're busy not-quite-dating someone who's not quite picking you. You're the prize, doofus. Stop renting yourself out for free.