The Dangers of Situationships
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Bigstock
The other day, I was scouring the internet, looking for inspiration, when I came across a piece entitled: “You Never Dated Her, But You Still Broke Her Heart” on Thought Catalog. It stuck out to me because it was my story and my song at one point in life. I didn’t even need to read the piece to know exactly what was going to be discussed. Situationships. You know those more than platonic relationships that go on for months and often years on end without a title. While these undefined relationships might work for a time, the longer they go on, the more of a problem they can often present.
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Bigstock
False hope
The thing about situationships is that they feel real. In fact, the behaviors are often indistinguishably similar to actual relationships. And it’s this similarity that can lull even the most bright and brilliant of us into a false sense of security. But more than that, they breed a lot of hope that one day your situationship will be official. You’ll be able to post one another on social media, you’ll be able to tell your friends they were wrong about him or her. And for some of us, that may eventually be the case. But many times, this is not the fate of those in situationships. More often than not, one or both parties gets tired of the arrangement and there is a breakup or a falling out for a relationship that was never officially defined in the first place.
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Describing it to other people (during and after)
When people, strangers and associates, ask you if you’re dating someone, you might feel tempted to say yes. But those type of inquiries rarely stop there. They’ll want to know about the man or woman in your life, how you met, how long you’ve been dating. The conversation can take a awkward and judgmental turn when you tell folks wonder why you’ve been dating someone for five years without so much as a title or any type of substantial commitment. You shouldn’t let the opinions of others hold too much weight in your relationships but the reason these types of questions make you uncomfortable is because, perhaps, deep down you’re entirely secure about the stagnation of the relationship either.
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Shutterstock
Wondering if you should date other people?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know this was something I struggled with quite a bit in my situationship. If I felt that I might be developing feelings for someone else, I would pull away for fear that I would put my situationship in jeopardy. But, in retrospect, for what?! Situationships can feel so real, that they’ll make you dismiss legit the very people who could give you a real, define and committed relationship.
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Shutterstock
No accountability
While most situationship partners start off quite nice, behaving just like bae. But don’t get too accustomed to this type of behavior. Because if the wind blows too hard, don’t you dare ask your situationship partner to do anything for you. After all, that’s not your man/girl/boo.
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Shutterstock
Feeling crazy
When your situationship boo reminds you that you all are nothing, it will have you scrolling through the Rolodex of your mind recalling all of the times he said something that made you feel it was perfectly acceptable for you to ask them to be there for you. It’s entirely common for a situationship boo to tell you they love you one minute but then go completely ghost when you look for that love to be acted out.
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Corbis
Putting your life on hold
I mentioned dismissing other potential romantic partners, but there are other ways you can stall your life, waiting for your situationship to turn into something real. For me, though it never happened, it was the consideration of placing myself in more advantageous locations. You know, places that might eventually lead us to make something really happen. Trust, relocating for someone who can’t commit or someone you don’t necessarily want to commit to, is not the move.
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Shutterstock
Ability to go ghost
It’s extremely hard to just drop off the face of the year if you were in an entire relationship with someone. Ghosting is much easier and comes with much less guilt in situationships where the person disappearing can rationalize it, again, by saying that there was never a reason to be accountable to you in the first place.
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Hearing you don’t have the right to question
I’ve alluded to this earlier, but actually hearing the person suggest that you meant nothing at all in their life, particularly when you know that’s not true, is not only heart wrenching, it’s infuriating.
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Bigstock
Feeling like you’ve been played at the end of it all
Dealing with the end of a situationship can be particularly difficult because maybe you didn’t share the details of your relationship with too many people. And even if you did, the last thing you needed to be reminded of is that you two weren’t an official item, so you should have never gotten too attached in the first place.
