Spooky, scary situationships

Dating is dead if you haven’t heard.

Instead, most young people choose to engage in a relationship—not to use a triggering word—dubbed a “situationship,” which is a non-committal, hook up situation.

I’m not saying that situationships are new, but they are certainly becoming more popular on college campuses and in pop culture.

Full transparency: I have never been in a raging situationship like the one I am about to describe, but I have seen them destroy my friends. So, I will admit that I cannot fully understand the inner workings and psychological impact situationships have. 

However, as someone who has been subjected to rants about this very topic for no less than five hours a week for over a year, I feel compelled to offer my outside perspective.

Let me define the situationship that I find problematic: One person in the situationship has high expectations and hopes for their current situation—namely to get into a serious relationship—while the other person sees it as simply a fun, casual fling.

This absolutely does not include any casual relationships where both people are content with where they are at. That is blissful! 

However, I see time and time again, people getting into what they think will be a simple and fun sneaky link turned into a confusing, tumultuous situation, waging psychological warfare on the person who feels unfulfilled by the relationship.

It is maddening to see how truly insane this manipulation turns people. While no one is at fault at the beginning of the situationship, it becomes cruel when someone voices how they feel, and they are met with niceties of false hope.

Dragging someone along to continue to reap the benefits of companionship without any commitment is where the main issue lies. From my perspective, and what I’ve seen on both sides, is that guys are more than happy with this arrangement.

There is a clear discrepancy between the goals for relationships in most college girls I talk to and college guys. Girls often want a committed relationship, while guys want a casual endeavor. This isn’t a surprise, yet this is optimistically overlooked on both sides.

So, to get a chance at a fulfilling relationship, girls may feel pressured to portray a chill, cool girl. At a certain point, they may decide that they are looking for more in their potential partner.

It is painful from an outside perspective to see this unfold. No matter what people tell the unhappy party, they understandably cannot break the bond they have formed. 

An apt quote is that “A situationship is a situationship to one person, and nothing to another.”

No one deserves to have their love and time met with phony affection and slimy proclamations and promises of love and the future. 

Unfortunately, advice is pointless in these situations. Oftentimes, the only way for someone to get closure from an ambiguous situationship is for the less involved person to end it. 

The ending is almost more cruel, as the tangibility of the relationship is put into question. Of course, this is all subjective to each party. To one person, it meant the world, and to the other it was just a pastime.

• hook up culture
• relationship
• situationships