In the beginning, God created men and he somehow found this was good. Through evolution, whether it is from monkey-to-human or human-to-idiot, men and humankind in general have always found ways to make somewhat simple things overly complicated.
For instance, boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Both like each other, get to know each other and date. However, in recent times it seems that boys meet each other, one likes the other, but the other one doesn’t. Regardless, they date, but they aren’t anything, but one wants to become something and the other one doesn’t, but he’s not clear about itーand thus the new unofficial relationship is born: a situationship. Really complicated, huh?
Situationships, according to the Snoh Aaelegra song of the same name, are essentially supposed to be a casual, undefined or commitment-free relationship. Kinda hard to call something undefined when “situationship” is the first name that comes up to describe this kind of relationship. Allegedly, these types of interactions are supposed to provide us all the benefits of being in a relationship without spending too much emotional energy. In all honesty, some credit cards come with better benefits without the high interest fee. While both can definitely make you cry…you can at least buy clothes with a credit card.
If my situationships have taught me anything, it’s that they can often be more complicated than an actual relationship. I actually see these types of interactions as could’ve-beens that hurt more because of the wasted potential they hold. The name itself implies you might be set up for trouble at some point of the ride. You have Ms. Situation, a noun often used to describe a problem (negative) combined with Mr. Relationship, another noun best described to unite two people who share a common emotion or love towards each other. In other words, a situationship is a problem between two people that have a common emotion towards each other.
What could this situation be, you ask? Literally anything…and that really annoys me. From past lovers, traumas and commitment issues, situationships will often feel like “I want to be with you, but…”- type of scenarios. However, these grueling duets can often cause toxic behavior and patterns we really don’t need and don’t have to deal with.
While I’ve been in a weird situationship for a while, I‘ll admit I have learned a lot from this tango act. It’s sometimes hard to even call such a thing a situationship when your footing with this person is often all over the place. Nonetheless, you might as well dance a tango to hell…and once you start dancing, you don’t realize you’re stuck in a limbo that has no chance of getting better, just possibly worsening as you goーeven more so when you know the only one that can be left heartbroken from this situationship is you (a direct but much-needed attack to the author of this article).
While some situationships can be fun, the label essentially feels like a stepping block to an eventual relationship or a break-up. Sometimes, in order to avoid any of the two from happening, you keep yourself in this weird middle ground stuck and unable to grow further… I’ll admit that this dance is starting to get a bit dizzy for me.
As we strap our dancing heels and strut to the dance floor that is the dating world, it’s important to recognize signs that lead us to know where in these types of situations. While green does mean go, yellow often warns to lead with precaution. Of course, we speed as fast as we can to avoid a red light. But as we stop in a red light, though, things tend to get a bit clearer…or foggier.
However, there is nothing wrong with removing yourself from toxic situationships or from experiences that aren’t maybe adding up to your interests. Some of these don’t even have to be with people we have sexual attraction with. Some forms of these weird interactions can be with friends, troubling exes and even with yourself. We often put ourselves in these loophole situationships with ourselves and our emotions, and those can trap us into starting a situationship with other people that feel the same or worse… At this point, we have already forgotten what we really deserve; precisely because we keep conforming and landing in these situationships or; more specifically, we keep trying to convince ourselves that people that will never be ready to be with us…eventually will (ouch!)
At the end of the day, regardless of our relationship status, communication and self-worth will never leave you lonely. When realizing and deciding how to end your current situationship (relationship or life-related) it’s important to also be ready to receive change with open arms. Sometimes the tides can be intimidating, but if you don’t face the wave…you might find yourself swimming a lot to just end up on another shore.