What is a situationship?
Stub • 363 Words • Relationships, Philosophy, 2025 • 12/30/2025
⚠️ This post contains a rougher cut of my thoughts on the topic and may be updated in the future. Please forgive any mistakes or lack of polish!
Why is it important to define what a situationship is?
I think that people tend to demonize situationships. This is understandable because for many they are obstacles in the way of that person finding the relationship that they really want.
Definitions of words change over time
Concepts of relationships and acceptable things to do in relationships are culturally defined and change over time
Attributes of a Situationship
Situationships are a type of relationship.
- A relationship is an entity between two people that is defined by reciprocal intent.
- Since situationships are a kind of relationship that means that they cannot be one-sided. If people have two different desired outcomes from the relationship
- Being lead on isn’t a situationship: If a person says they don’t want anything and you stick around, that’s not a situationship. The person’s boundary was set and any other actions they take are not to be considered. A relationship is defined by boundaries and mutual intent/respect and not by actions taken.
- Sometimes the other person is actively leading you on, other times you can lead yourself on. You can convince yourself that the other person will eventually want to change and be with you.
Situationships are ill or non-defined relationships.
Situationships are romantic in nature.
- A sexual situationship would probably be more aptly described as friends with benefits or a hookup. When emotions get tangled into the mix, then it’s beginning to look more like a situationship.
- If there were no romantic feelings then I fail to see what distinguishes it from a platonic friendship.
Potential Definitions of Situationship
“Situationships are just bad relationships”
It depends on how you define relationships because if it just about interactions between two people then that’s just a truism. However if it’s about talking about romantic relationships then it’s not necessarily the case because usually those kinds of relationships are defined and definitionally situationships are not defined.
“Neither friends nor dating” or The Secret Third Thing
This can be done intentionally though so i wouldn’t say that it deserves to be called a situationship
Situationships are anything other than friendship and dating
This is different than the above definition