Ah, situationships — the word probably evokes a visceral reaction in you from just hearing it. Instead of dating, a situationship has the unique (and terrifying) ability to leave you thinking you’re in a relationship, but in the limbo with no title to make the person necessarily exclusive to you. They are a recipe for disaster, and usually end in heartbreak. If you want to have a peaceful college career, I highly recommend you don’t, under any circumstance, find yourself involved in a situationship. When I went through this canon event, music made me feel a lot better.
Part of the healing process is letting yourself feel, and embracing the gut-wrenching feelings that come with losing someone you care about. Before you go out on the town and try to distract yourself from that partner who ruined your sense of what’s up and what’s down, let yourself wallow. My preferable way to grieve someone is to run to Apple Music (sorry Spotify lovers, it came with my phone plan), and create a playlist that replicates the exact scenario I was in, almost a little too specifically. Feel free to use these tunes as inspiration for when you (inevitably) get your heart broken by a “mid” person in Isla Vista.
Songs for when you romanticized them:
I can’t be a Her Campus writer at UCSB and not include a song by my favorite alumni, Jack Johnson. The song “Flake” is about recalling the energy in a relationship that used to be returned, and feeling a shift as one’s rose colored glasses come off, and they see the truth of their situation. Johnson sings, “the harder that you try baby, the further you’ll fall,” or the more effort the speaker puts into the relationship, the more it seems to not be reciprocated and their connection seems to dwindle. If that doesn’t perfectly describe a situationship, I don’t know what will!
We humans have a unique ability to make excuses for those we care about, and justify their mistakes. Miss Taylor perfectly captures this in her song, where she describes the feeling of yearning for someone, and knowing that they aren’t good for you at the same time. In one line she sings, “I don’t know what to call this situation/But I know I can’t call you mine,” which perfectly captures the dreadful feeling a no-label relationship gives you.
Pearl Jam is the epitome of dad rock — a subgenre of rock that dads seem to love — and you can see why they are so popular as soon as Eddie Vedder, the lead singer, sings his first line. You can feel the bitterness in his voice as he reflects back on a past partner, and now feels that the beautiful moments they shared are “black,” or tainted with the unlikely end to their relationship.Â
I have forever been a hopeless romantic, and the Smiths managed to capture that exact feeling with this song. You can interrupt it in different ways, but I took, “See the luck I’ve had/Can make a good man/Turn Bad,” to mean that past relationships not going the way you envisioned can make one not believe in a kind of love that’s depicted in movies and books — you know, that kind of simple love with no expectations. The Deftones’ version also hits, if your playlist leans more towards the alt/emo side of music.Â
Songs for feeling disappointed & angry with them:
How can you be mad at someone when they’re just a person, and going through something while trying to care for you? (Personally, I’m petty, so I can find a way). Fiona Apple’s song is about knowing that both you and your partner aren’t in the right place to be in love, and feeling disappointed in the inevitable outcome of heartbreak. When she sings, “I thought he was a man but he was just a little boy,” I felt that. Sometimes you care about someone so much that you delude yourself to think they’d be willing to change for you, just like how you would for them. If you want to relive that pain again, add this song to the queue!
This song conveys the confusing, head banging feeling of being in love and not feeling it reciprocated in the way you need. Hill sings, “Is this just a silly game/That forces you to act this way?/Forces you to scream my name/Then pretend that you can’t stay.” Along with drop dead beautiful vocals, her music in the background will make you immediately put this song on repeat.
If you like this song (and who wouldn’t, let’s be real), I recommend another song on the same album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Titled “When it Hurts So Bad,” it beautifully captures the feeling of being unable to let go of someone who isn’t good for you — essentially the whole heartbreaking scenario that is a situationship.
Songs for when they find someone new to torment:
Situationships aren’t built to last, so when they inevitably find someone new, this is *the* song to scream on a long car ride. You’ll find that Morissette’s fun world play and unique, raspy voice will keep her song stuck in your head all day, and really validate how one feels to be replaced — the happiness you feel that you’re out of that relationship, but bitterness that they are now doing everything you used to do together with someone else.
It’s hard to make two completely different people mesh in a relationship, especially when they don’t have the same emotional intelligence and maturity as you. Frank Ocean demonstrates the pain this brings, singing, “wish we’d grown up on the same advice.” In the song, this variation in how they dealt with conflicts made them break up, and now their past partner is with someone new. If you apply this to your past situationship, you might find that it’s a big indicator of why you’re no longer together…
Songs for when you want to be left the h*ll alone:
Lauryn Hill, my queen, you have done it again. Her lyricism always hits, and this song’s lyrics especially do after a situationship, as she describes finding it hard to feel content due to relationships that keep dragging her back. This song is filled with passion, and lyrics like, “He takes all my energy, trapped in my energy,” which may be very relatable to you after enduring something as emotionally confusing as a situationship. Hill’s voice breaks multiple times in this, showing how deeply she feels. If you love songs that feel like a piece of art, you must add this to your playlist.
You may know Fergie from her iconic national anthem performance, but in this song, her real voice shines through (thought it might not be as funny). Fergie sings about the need to escape a past love to focus on herself, and finally be tranquil in her solitude, which, as I’m sure you know, situationships don’t always offer. Play this song when you feel like going back to that partner, as a reminder of what you’re working towards while being by yourself.
The yearning, pining love that every person dreams of seems so hard to find these days, but keep holding out. I hope you learned your lesson from the last situationship — and don’t ever feel desperate enough for love, that you settle for a half-assed connection from someone who doesn’t care about you — but if you haven’t, feel free to come back and add more extremely specific songs to that ever evolving heartbreak playlist. Music and art have the unique ability to put emotions into words, and are a healthy way to validate how you’re feeling. Next time you’re on the verge of a breakdown over your situationship, put on that playlist and go on a long drive, get a tan with friends, or have a good cry. Those feelings will fade eventually, and you’ll be okay.