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Reading between the lines of what makes a situationship

Navigating the unwritten pages of emotional unavailability, low commitment, and a social culture that emphasizes co-dependency in an ever-evolving world full of loneliness.

by Noah Alhassan

In the last two years, major social media moguls, Instagram and Tik-Tok, seem to be flooded by the seemingly made-up word situationship. Due to the prominence of such word, it is common to try and ponder what a situationship is and furthermore think whether or not you as a person have experienced such a thing.

Delving into what a situationship is, it seems to be a good thing: a no labels relationship with the pros of being in one, while also bearing the fruits of living a so-called single and independent life. 

However, the truth is far from being just black and white. To tackle why a situationship is a bad thing, we have to look at what putting oneself in low effort, non-genuine and borderline transactional relationships say about one’s own dignity.

In a situationship, the currency is attention and as long as both needs are met, then its assumed everything is fine. Realistically, one party always gets hurt in some way due to the emotional volatility of the structural foundation of said relationship. Even in the modern social scheme, very few people are open to a label free relationship because at the end of the day regardless of ego, everyone wants the comfort and safety of someone they love. 

Truly, the situationship was born out of fear rather than the idea of progressiveness because when taking an outside look, social media perpetuates a dating culture that is very transactional, rather than emotional. We often see videos on how to get a man to get you anything you want or how to get someone obsessed and not once in these videos is it clarified that true, genuine, and authentic love shouldn’t feel like a game and just flow naturally.

What these small bits and pieces of today’s social culture portray is a general idea that dating isn’t something worth putting all your effort in and realistically if you as a person enter the dating world you should enter with extremely low expectations. Setting the bar low, however, sets the precedent of low-quality, borderline meaningless relationships that serve to just waste time.

The introduction of social media into our daily life has pushed a narrative of always being out and about with someone, regardless of whether any of these relationships hold any weight. In today’s culture, instead of thinking on how genuine a connection is, we often think about the instant rewards such as fancy dates, more outings, and an overall seemingly fulfilled life. This standard is being pushed all over social media and as a result leads people to care more about how they present themselves rather than how they actually feel in moments of solitude.

This disconnect ties into the concept of a situation-ship because at the end of the day even if it doesn’t feel good, you gain all of the social prowess of being in a relationship, you have a chance to be like the others to be able to say that you too, even after all the highs and lows have someone.