With the summer coming to an end, our vows to stay single and enjoy the sun with our friends are soon to expire, or maybe we had a summer fling that has already flung. Now we’re here, in the ever cozy and festive “-ber” months, wanting to cuddle up with a good book, a coffee and maybe someone special.
Getting to that cuddling stage, though, takes some time. You have to try people on for size and see if they’re the one you actually want to couple up with this holiday season. Unfortunately, some of us never leave that “trying on phase” and stay examining the same person for months. This leads to the non-committal, usually complicated, event of the situationship.
Many of us have had the confusing experience of being in a situationship, even if at the time it was just “hanging out” or “getting to know each other.” Essentially, it is just casual dating, but the word dating has such heavy connotations today that we don’t like to use it. Dating implies commitment, which implies emotions, which means someone can get hurt and no one wants that. So we don’t label it and then it isn’t anything serious and everyone walks away happy, right?
Well, that’s what we want to think, but I don’t know if I’ve ever come in contact with a situationship where both parties walk away unscathed. It always seems that when a situationship comes to an end, there is this level of closure that is never fully reached and the event ends up haunting one or both parties long after the situation is over.
So if you never dated this person, why does not being with them anymore hurt so much?
The Mystery of it all
Part of the reason that the pain of a situationship ending sticks around so long is because of their mysteriousness.
A defining factor of these arrangements is the fact that there is no commitment, and because there is no commitment, there isn’t any obligation to share a lot of details about yourself with the other person. Without this obligation looming overhead, conversations are able to be lighter. Maybe you just talk about your shared interests and don’t really venture beyond what you did that day.
Another reason why situationships tend to be so mysterious is the often limited or sporadic contact. Again, without the commitment of a relationship, you often don’t feel obligated to text someone all the time, or see them everyday. You see each other when it is convenient, do what you need to do and then “I’ll text you.” There normally aren’t set dates, times or even plans so you’re hooked waiting for a text or call even if it is the dreaded “u up?”
Without knowing a lot about someone, you are able to make up your own version of them in your head. This version is based on real life traits of that person, but they aren’t ever tainted by the person’s flaws because you aren’t around them, or don’t know them enough for this persona to be dissolved. You are more likely to dive into the “what ifs” of it all because you don’t have much to go off of in real life (and we all know how dangerous the “what ifs” can be).
Let’s look at a very famous example of a mysterious situationship in pop culture: Taylor Swift and Matty Healy.
Part of the mystery behind these two lies within the fact that them being together in any capacity is sort of confirmed, but also sort of not. Though neither of them have ever truly come forward and explained their past together, they’ve been seen at multiple of each other’s concerts, leading to rumors of them being together or reviving their fling.
Top publications like Elle Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar, have even released articles detailing the speculated timelines of the this relationship. Both articles mention how these speculations increased after Swift’s release of her album “The Tortured Poets Department,” with Harper’s Bazaar even releasing another article breaking down all the possible allusions to the alleged situationship.
Since neither Swift, nor Healy have truly come forward and addressed these speculations, the mystery between them lives on and has fans diving into their discographies to try and find anything they can that gives answers to what happened between the two.
We as humans tend to not like things being up to interpretation. We like answers, even if we have to make them up in some way. The Cleveland Clinic covers this in an article about situationships, where psychologist Susan Albers explains how not having a clear picture of what is going on can create a level of anxiety and need to create our own explanation for things.
So, whether you’re dissecting your own situationship, or that of your favorite celebrity, the mystery of it all tends to be a key factor into why we stay hooked so long on something that was never meant to be permanent.
There’s always emotions involved
Another reason as to why the pain of a situationship seems to stick around longer than it should is because, no matter how hard we might try, emotions always get involved. No matter how adament you are about things being casual, being intimate with someone in any capacity invites an emotional connection into the picture.
In the same Cleveland Clinic article mentioned previously, Dr. Albers talks about the biological aspect of this attachment. She explains that no matter how unattached we attempt to be, being intimate with someone, especially physically, causes our brains to release the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin promotes feelings of trust and attachment, thus leading to a complicated situation. Not even our brains are biologically prepared for situationships.
We form connections with people everyday, whether it’s the platonic connection of finding someone who reads the same books as you, or the, in some capacity, romantic connection of being in a situationship. There are some emotions there, though we like to pretend like there’s not.
An example that immediately comes to mind of this is the situation between Elio and Oliver in the film adaptation of “Call Me by Your Name.”
Oliver is spending the summer at Elio’s family’s home in Italy and the two quickly begin a physical relationship that they try to keep a secret from everyone else. They both know that whatever they have is only going to last the summer that Oliver is there, but they enjoy their time anyway.
However, it becomes very clear that the relationship between the two exceeds just a physical connection, with Elio displaying a strong, and valid, emotional reaction to Oliver leaving, and to him announcing his marriage long after the situation between the two had ended.
So, despite the boundaries you set in your own situationship, or even what you tell yourself is and isn’t allowed emotionally, there will always be emotions involved. A connection is being built in some way and we’re all only human. We can lie to ourselves as much as we want, but at the end of the day, we have feelings that are felt despite what we originally plan.
IS it ever casual?
Now the last, and most dreaded, question asked by anyone who has ever encountered a situationship in anyway: Was it even casual? Now, as I’ve mentioned before, situationships are noncommittal. They aren’t serious, there isn’t supposed to be any strings attached or emotions involved.
They’re simple, or at least they’re supposed to be. However, as we’ve dissected the various ways in which situationships defy all the things that they are supposed to be, naturally the question of “Is it ever casual?” arises.
What is and isn’t casual is unique to each situationship, but what is defined as casual isn’t always how those actions are actually perceived. Even though the relationship is defined as “casual” the conversations being had or actions occurring might not fit your own definition.
Penn Badgley brings this up in his episode of Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy.” Badgley seems adamant of the fact that casual dating doesn’t truly exist. When asked about casual dating he retorts with “Is it ever casual?” furthering the argument with, “Show me somebody who really, really, truly is casual about it … Not that they act casual about it, that they feel casual about it.” Touché, Dan Humphrey, touché.
Seriously, though, that is the main problem with situationships. They aren’t ever casual, not truly, and even if they are for one person, they may not be for the other involved, but because they’re labeled as casual we try to force them to be and convince ourselves that we don’t have the feelings we do as to not make the situationship more than it is supposed to be.
In the end, the repression of emotions, the uncertainty and the endless supply of what-ifs make situationships an emotional roller coaster and a never ending mystery of “Am I allowed to feel this way?”