There’s a very specific kind of delusion that comes with situationships — the kind where you start to convince yourself that something is there simply because you’ve invested so much time. For me, this looked like seven months of texting, calling, sending memes, sharing pieces of my life… and somehow, never meeting in person.
In early July last year, I was in a low headspace coming off the high of a study abroad trip and a fellowship working for my state’s Democratic party, and I wanted to feel fulfilled in more ways than career achievements and academia. So, naturally, I went on Hinge for some mindless scrolling. After a week of being on the app, he matched with me. I was attracted to him physically, but what sold me was his pickup line. It wasn’t too sexual, it wasn’t basic; it was thoughtful and direct. He basically said my bold personality matched my beauty and he was interested to learn more about me on a personal level. So yeah, I obviously matched. Little did I know that this choice initiated what would become a seven-month-long situationship.
It got to the point that we FaceTimed every week and would message pretty much every day. I gave serious consideration to some of our key differences, such as religion and politics, and how we’d handle them if we got more serious. I even alluded to my mom that I had someone in my life. And yet, after all that, we still had not met.
If you asked me six months ago why I was OK with a situationship like this, I probably would’ve said something about “timing,” or “he’s just busy,” or my personal favorite, “we’re building a real connection first.” In hindsight, I was doing what a lot of us in situationships do: romanticizing potential instead of accepting reality. Yes, he was supportive, kind, and a great confidant (which is why I waited so long to end it), but clearly there were things lacking that made us stay in the situationship stage for so long.
It felt like intimacy, but it was controlled, distant, and ultimately, incomplete.
I didn’t want to face reality. I now realize, this is partially because I was grieving. After my dad passed at the start of 2024, something in me shifted. Dating stopped feeling exciting and started feeling… exhausting. Unsafe, even. I became avoidant — quick to shut things down before they could get real — but I still craved the comfort, consistency, and security of a relationship. So I stayed in something that required just enough emotional investment to feel connected, but not enough vulnerability to feel truly seen.
A situationship is the perfect place to hide like that. I got the attention without the accountability. The closeness without the commitment. It felt like intimacy, but it was controlled, distant, and ultimately, incomplete. And for a while, that worked for me. It felt safer than actually letting someone in. But safety and stagnation are not the same thing, and I had been lying to myself for months convincing myself this was the case. Seven months deep, I had to ask myself a hard question: Am I avoiding real connection, or am I accepting less than I deserve because it feels familiar?
My answer? Seven months of broken promises to see each other is not “taking it slow.” It’s avoidance — on both sides. On my end, it was a string of texts excusing why I was simply “too busy” to go out from the warm comfort of my bed, and on his end, it was the lack of effort to plan a date that was meaningful.
Blocking him wasn’t impulsive. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t me being irrational.
So, on Feb. 12, two days before Valentine’s Day (the supposed “most romantic day of the year”) I blocked my situationship. I let him know that I genuinely appreciated our time getting to know each other, but it likely was not going to work in the long term. I also told him that our lack of communication before he suggested a spontaneous hangout (which always seemed to coincidentally happen when he was feeling horny, BTW) was the final nail in the coffin for me. I want to know that I am worth taking time to plan a real date — and actually going through with it. And then I hit the block button, because I didn’t want to drag this out another seven months.
Blocking him wasn’t impulsive. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t me being irrational. It was the first time I chose clarity over confusion. It was me admitting that I deserve something real. Something that exists outside of my phone screen. Something that doesn’t require me to shrink my expectations just to keep it going.
Maybe I was a little avoidant. Maybe I stayed longer than I should have.
But choosing to walk away?
That wasn’t delusion.
That was self-respect — and self-love.