Undefined. Noncommittal. Nonjudgmental. A situationship is the blurry middle ground between friendship and a romantic relationship. There are no labels, and both parties are technically allowed to see other people.
A situationship is appealing because it appears to offer all the benefits of a relationship with none of the responsibility. You can have sex or go out to dinner, but never send a single “good morning” text. You can meet a cute guy at the bar and never once tell him you are in a committed relationship. That is the marketable trait of the whole affair: It is always temporary and never exclusive.
Many people attribute the rise of situationships to social media, COVID-19, or other cultural factors. Social media has promoted an artificial sense of connection from the comfort of one’s couch, making in-person relationships seem like extra work. COVID-19 compromised our social capabilities, making it mentally easier to settle for some semblance of a reciprocal relationship than to brave the dangers of being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend.
But the real cause of the situationship’s success is our tolerance of it. Not even 70 years ago, if two people were seeing each other just to sleep together, with no intention of pursuing marriage, their community would have shamed them. Nowadays, it is perfectly acceptable to be single while sleeping with multiple people. Normalizing a warped version of commitment is easier than calling it out. But it should be called out, because refusing to do so contributes to our society’s broader unwillingness to pursue marriage.
Our generation has passively accepted that situationships are worth pursuing. Not only that they are worthwhile, but that they contain dignity. Unsurprisingly, a messy situationship often has worse emotional consequences than a bad breakup. That is because a situationship has no inherent dignity, which is why almost everyone who has been in one will admit they are not proud of it.
Half of people ages 18 to 24 say they are currently in, or have previously been in, a situationship. So it is not a coincidence that only a little over half of Gen Z is projected to marry. Situationships are another one of Gen Z’s brilliant creations, one that deconstructs social norms and encourages a lifestyle of perpetual singleness.
“Marriage is the governing cultural norm about who gets to pass their genes into the next generation, [so] what could possibly be more important to the future of humanity than marriage?” said Conn Carroll, commentary editor at the Washington Examiner, in his book Sex and the Citizen.
WE’RE NOT DOING ENOUGH TO FIGHT PORNOGRAPHY
The men and women of Gen Z are more willing to settle for these lame excuses for relationships than commit to the responsibility of being someone’s partner. And we, as a generation, continue to tolerate that attitude. If we want to see more marriage, our society must hold itself to a higher standard of dating.
So cancel your plans to perpetually “hang out” with someone. Only people willing to use the word “date” in a sentence are worthy of your dignity and time.