What the f*** is a situationship?

On unrequited love, lingering, and casual - shit, I think my prefrontal cortex just developed

Valentines Day 1990, a man sees a beautiful woman on the Northern line, he gets off a stop or two early to chase her down and ask her out. No, this isn’t a horror film about a 90’s Dahmer-esque stalker but instead the story of how my parents fell in love. A few years of saving up later, they headed down Route 66 with a four-year-old in tow to get married on Christmas Day in Vegas. They went to the chapel of love with an Elvis impersonating officiant because they thought it sounded funny and knew it would shock their catholic parents. They were anything but traditional, yet the love they created was biblical. It’s now 2024, and I’m on the same tube line to meet an emotionally unavailable man from Hinge.

Except I don’t know that at this point. Because the most important part of being an emotionally unavailable man is to act incredibly emotionally available until the following steps are completed:

1. They pursue you

2. They treat you really well

3. You have sex.

There are a few things you can look out for though; the red flags that will turn it into a painful one-sided relationship that has you writing substacks about a man you dated briefly a long time ago:

A. They bring up their ex more than once.

B. They don’t sleep very well next to you.

C. Your star signs are compatible.

***

“What the fuck is a situationship?” I said to my sister after coming out of a six year relationship. I’d gone from looking at engagement rings to experiencing dating for the first time since I was 16, and it was hellish. I didn’t think the first time I wrote about love would be about anyone else, let alone about someone that never loved me back.

“I’m pretty sure you’re in one.” She replied.

This was over a year ago now, and I almost didn’t go on my first date with Joseph*. For loads of different reasons but mainly because I was lazy and dating was beginning to bore me. It was a sticky hot summer where the air felt thick all the time. I’d have to straighten my hair multiple times and I’d still find it curling at the nape of my neck from the heat. I cancelled on him over text so I could stay in and do nothing but sit in front of a fan for a few hours.

(*His name is changed to protect him from the shame - which clearly I have none of)

He text me again a few hours later to say he was in town with a friend, and he’d still like to meet if I felt better/was free now/whatever lie I told that I can’t remember now, and like some sort of sign, my fan broke. I couldn’t possibly stay in the overheated flat any longer.

We met and unfortunately, it was perfect.

The next few months passed by as he filled my flat with fresh flowers and filled my brain with the worst possible thing you can give a woman - hope. Picnics in the park, dinners out and hanging out with my friends became frequent. He morphed into my daily life, nights spent listening to Mazzy Star and keeping a toothbrush next to mine. Slowly the way he held my hand became normal again and I settled into trusting someone new. I started to hope this might be something.

-“I can’t be anyone’s boyfriend right now.” He said casually as he lay in bed pretending to be my boyfriend. I nodded, and I calmed my breath and I pretended I was cool with it. “I can only be honest with you.” He’d say, and a pathetic part of me wished he’d go back to lying. I smiled and swallowed back my feelings like a good girl as he dissected his ex-girlfriend.

A while later he called me to end things because we wanted different things, he wanted to continue to do whatever it is that men do, and I wanted a boyfriend.

Wanting him to be my boyfriend felt so embarrasing to admit, even to myself. Disgusting and dirty, somehow greedy. That in a generation of disposable everything; where your straw dissolves before you’ve even finished drinking and where it’s not cool to even have a favourite restaurant - I wanted something biblical. Something historic. I have dedicated years of my life trying to seem like this might not be true; mainly by dating people I didn’t really like. Keeping the other side of me guarded behind a thinly veiled pretense of nonchalance. Lying to myself that I didn’t care, that I had no feelings, and that if you cut me open I wouldn’t bleed blood. But, despite that curated personality and friends that are experts at it - I have a ribbon of pathetic romanticism running through me. So, he left, I cried, and listened to For Emma by Bon Iver on repeat for weeks. I spent the next few weeks doing embarrasing things like searching his ex up on Instagram and feeling my heart drop as he made spotify blends with his next victims insignificant others.

“I think I’m just made to love someone properly, I can’t do anything casually, I can’t work casually, I can’t have friendships casually, I commit to anything, I’m all or nothing. I love everything too intensely-” I exploded to my sister-turned-therapist.

“Imagine if you could love yourself the same way?” She said.

So, I decided to try it. I spent the next year putting it all back into myself. I tried to live more authentically. I stopped pretending to be someone I wasn’t and took accountability for how my people pleasing put me in these positions. Let my hair grow out, tried to tell the truth about what I wanted and tried to just be me.

When I look at the people who want a casual relationship like this, it’s usually someone who’s just got out of a relationship that doesn’t know how to be single yet so they’d rather have all the benefits of a partner with none of the responsibility. I know I’d been guilty of this too, back when I’d muddy the dating pool with my own fresh heartbreak and emotional inconsistencies as I tried to figure out who I was. I think maybe we’re all so afraid to be alone we enter these half-hearted situations to avoid looking at ourselves for as long as possible. Finding it too difficult to love ourselves enough not to need something shallow to fill the space.

Our generation has been feeding off a cultural diet of Fleabag and Normal People; and whilst these are brutally honest depictions of dating, I think there comes a point where we can all be brave and say I want better than that for myself. As well as a world where we stop betraying ourselves to make someone else’s life easier.

I used to hate how intensely I felt everything, but I know this would mean trading everything I also love about myself - I’d lose my lifelong friendships and the instant connections too, I wouldn’t be able to write anymore or notice sunsets or adopt kittens I found on the side of the road. I wouldn’t be me.

***

It’s a year later, and I’m on that tube to meet a guy I liked, the one I told you about earlier. It was another hot summer and we had another date that felt like something you’d read about. A gallery to start with where he showed me his favourite paintings, he made good pasta, we kissed whilst his favourite music played and the next morning we woke up together.

“How did you sleep?” He said into my hair.

“Yeah, good thanks.” I turned around to face him, “how did you?”

“Not good, kept waking up.”

Shit, not again.

“We should probably talk about what we’re both looking for.” He said slowly.

“Yeah, we probably should.” I said, waiting to see how he’d deliver my morning news.

“I can only do something casual” He started, “I’ve only been single for a few months-”

“I don’t want anything casual.” I said, and I think it shocked us both. “It’s not who I am.” These revolutionary words hung nicely in the fresh air for a moment. I could hear London outside his window beginning to wake up, the slow hum of the stations starting and bikes turning down the street.

“So, what now?” He said, and I looked away from his really nice eyes and looked up at his really nice ceiling, and I thought about my friends waiting for me at lunch, and my family that really loved me, and I said:

“I’m gonna go.”

-shit, I think my prefrontal cortex just developed.