The Rise of the Situationship
“What was that—you and him?” A friend asked me a few weeks ago at a party. I stared into my wine, as though it might provide the answers for me. What was it? What was it, now, with the clarity of hindsight? What was it, this relationship that spanned four years of my life?
In short, not a relationship. Not in the context I’ve come to know, anyway. I never felt able to tell my family about it. Never felt free to take photos of the time we spent together. It never felt like mine—like something I could hold or own in any way. But that’s not to say it wasn’t meaningful. Rather, I simply have no neat way to package up four year’s worth of complexities over a sip of wine. As a writer, I find this mildly irritating. Descriptions are supposed to be my specialty.
To my parents, the concept of remaining romantically linked to another for years without any clear label might seem strange, but my situation is a drop in the ocean. There are muddied relationships all around us, and they’re only getting more common.
For the most part, I believe situationships are failing to meet our needs. But that’s not to say I believe that everyone should be either sat on the shores of singledom or plunged neck-deep into a relationship. I like the idea that there are some who might want to dip a toe, a leg, and rush out again, screaming with the endless enthusiasm of a child playing in the waves. But when we talk about situationships, it’s important to address one simple issue: balance. Balance between child and wave. Balance between desires.
In my own situationship (as well as nearly every other that I’ve come across in my friendship circle) there is almost always one party who is left feeling inadequate. In the beginning, perhaps naively, I thought these mutual feelings would result in a full-blown relationship. Then as the months and years began to trail on, I realized that desire was never going to be gifted to me.
I began to view the whole thing in a different light. I was less invested, and it actually became easier in a lot of ways. Nevertheless, the eventual outcome was never really my choice. And, put simply, a casual romantic relationship can only be truly mutually beneficial if it strikes that perfect balance in wants and needs. Otherwise, there will always be someone left asking: Why is this it? Why am I being drip-fed love when I want it poured?
Need is an interesting word when used in this context. Part of what stopped me from asking for more than a situationship was the fear I would appear ‘needy.’ It's a term that is stacked against women, ready to be rolled out the minute we express our emotions plainly. Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller states: “Attachment principles teach us that people are only as needy as their unmet needs. When their emotional needs are met, and the earlier the better, they usually turn their attention outward. This is sometimes referred to in literature as the “dependency paradox”: The more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become.”
Situationships are a breeding ground for feeling needy because of the unclear boundaries involved. It’s hard to voice your emotions when the parameters of a relationship are up in the air.
There were so many things I wanted to say over the years—some loving, some cutting. I silenced them all in favour of keeping the peace. Like Levine and Heller describe, I became less daring the longer I was left wanting.
Two months ago I was walking alongside someone. It was our third date. At the traffic lights, he paused to tell me that he had feelings for me, could see this going somewhere and asked if I felt the same. The clarity and honesty of this statement left me blinking wordlessly. I was used to cryptic hints, flirty looks. These were unchartered waters. And yet, there is really nothing revolutionary in telling people how we feel. I found myself going over his words in my head in the weeks after—reveling in the sense of calm they brought with them. So this is what it’s like to communicate my feelings honestly.
Unconventional relationships can be wonderful. They can be progressive and liberating, just as conventional relationships can be loveless and cruel. But while we’re in them, we need to be consistently assessing our own needs. We need to be asking ourselves: is this relationship making me better or worse? Am I being lifted up or squashed down by it?
When I think about situationships now, I think back to when I was studying literature at university. I remember how many times I diligently tried to read certain books that didn’t grip me. Moby Dick. Ulysses. Rather than scrutinizing the book itself, I turned my frustrations inward. I clearly wasn’t clever or high-brow enough to understand these works. It was me that was at fault, not these male-created masterpieces. I found I was replicating this mentality in my relationships—determinedly thumbing through the same old passages and feeling surprised and deflated when I was presented with the same conclusions.
Over time, I’ve learned that some stories don’t need to be finished, and any romantic situation which disrupts the balance in your life can simply be shelved. We needn’t punish ourselves by staying in situationships that aren’t allowing us to be honest, daring, and passionate.
After all, what kind of story would that make?