Hannah and John are disgustingly in love; they do everything together, they talk all the time, eat together, and spam reels deep into the night. They even sleep together, and it’s making Hannah go insane, because John is disgustingly in love with at least 3 other girls. Hannah can’t do anything though, because they’re not exclusive, and she’ll have to take what she can get.
“Situationship” is the name most Gen Z people would give to Hannah and John’s predicament, since the term exploded in popularity in the past couple years and became an emblem for the issues that seem to overwhelm our generation. I spoke to a few different Goucher students to get their insight on situationships, whether it be from personal experience or observing their friends get sucked into one. Hannah and John may not be real, but many Goucher students are intimately familiar with their plight.
There are many definitions for this relatively new term, but none are universally agreed upon. Merriam-Webster defines it as “An informal romantic or sexual relationship,” which, while technically true, doesn’t capture the full breadth of the word. During my conversations with my peers regarding the term, none of us could fully and succinctly define what it was, and I believe this is part of the allure for me.
The best way to understand the word is by accepting its vagueness. You could hear ten wildly different stories with very different relationship dynamics, and they’d all be situationship horror stories.
Let’s start at the very beginning; with the crush. “Absolutely, crushes are sustenance to me, my life feels so boring when I don’t have someone to crush on,” says an anonymous Goucher junior, when asked if he’d ever had a crush on someone at Goucher. “First day of class, I’m looking for someone cute.” The prospect of a relationship is front of mind for many, if not most, young people. The moment you start college, the clock starts ticking, and many students are convinced they have to find love on campus, or it’ll be too late for them. Could this be why we allow so much from those we’re interested in?
“I don’t know if I’d consider my stuff a situationship, because I feel like that’s an immature term to describe a relationship, in the large scheme of things it’s just describing non-commitment.” Some may stay in a non-committed relationship because they think they’ll be able to convince the other party to settle down. The junior quoted earlier, “I did want it to be a serious relationship, she didn’t.
We talked about that a month in. I guess, I know this isn’t really how it works, I thought I could change her mind if I did all the right things.” This is the same student that uses crushes to make his life more interesting, and here he’s admitting to staying in a misaligned relationship, because the hope of changing the other person was enough to withstand rejection.
This isn’t just a Goucher perception though, according to Zoe Kon in Beyond the Surface: Understanding the “Blurred Lines” of Sexual Dynamics and Consent in Trinity College’s Hookup Scene;“As defined by collective responses to what a situationship is, it entails a lack of clear communication of the relationship, a common theme in conversation regarding hooking up and relationships in general at Trinity.”
There will always be someone hurt when neither person is on the same page regarding boundaries, values, and hopes for where a relationship might end up.
“The idea of situationships gives people an excuse to be flaky for no reason. You’re being selfish in a cowardly way,“ said another sophomore, when asked about the topic. There’s two sides to every relationship, the person stringing someone along, wanting either validation, easy company, or sexual gratification, and then there’s the person who is too afraid to ask for more. Situationships can be a result of two people who both know exactly what they want but are too afraid to share it, but it can also be someone who knowingly stays in a relationship misaligned with their values even though it’s hurting them.
By Mariajose Perez ’29
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