Are Situationships a Bad Sign?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Situationships aren’t bad if they’re consensual and both people involved know that they’re casual things that aren’t going to lead anywhere. They’re also not bad if they refer to that period of time early on in dating, when maybe both of you are hoping to find something long-term and exclusive but aren’t sure if the other person is the right one to commit to. That’s a natural part of the evolution of a relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where situationships go off the rails is when one person wants more commitment, but the other does not and wants to stay casual. The person who wants the commitment can feel unsatisfied because they won’t get the closeness they’d prefer. If you want commitment, you likely want to be more open emotionally, too, and you won’t get the support and reciprocity that you seek. It can leave you with an up-in-the-air feeling and leave you very confused about boundaries and what to do or expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look for these signs to determine what’s going on with those dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, if you’ve been dating this person only a short time and haven’t talked about commitment or what the two of you want the relationship to be, you’re likely in a situationship. This isn’t necessarily bad, and you may even want to stay in the situationship phase a little longer as you get to know the person more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your dates don’t seem like actual dates<\/a>, or if you don’t really have conversations outside those dates, you may be in a situationship.\u00a0 Even fairly casual relationships where the two people are still committed to each other include times that are easy to define as dates.\u00a0 In many cases, you have dates, but other than a quick call, email, or text to ask if you want to go somewhere, you have no outside communication with this person.\u00a0 That doesn’t show a lot of desire on the other person’s part to commit to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Situationships aren’t always completely devoid of intimacy and can seem more like relationships than a friends-with-benefits situation, but the boundaries are so poor that you don’t feel like the two of you are really growing closer. They also don’t have to involve sex, but what closeness there seems to be does not leave you feeling very well-connected to this person, and the connection between you doesn’t seem to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, you could be dating an emergency room surgeon who’s constantly being called to a hospital; you’d have a lot of dates canceled even though you could be in a full-fledged relationship. But if you’re not dating someone whose life demands last-minute changes to plans, then having dates canceled a lot is a sign of a situationship. This is a sign that you’re not among the important people in their life, and that’s a sign you’re not going to get the commitment you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the person you’re dating has absolutely no desire to define the relationship any further or to consider exclusivity, you’re in a situationship. And if you want more commitment, this is a sign that there’s a basic incompatibility between you two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you’re in a relationship, you have certain experiences that show the two of you are getting closer and, as psychologist Susan Albers told the Cleveland Clinic<\/a>, are integrating more into each other’s lives.\u00a0 One of these is meeting the friends and family members of your partner and getting to know them.\u00a0 If you’ve been dating someone for a long time and still haven’t met these other people, that’s a hint that the person you’re dating doesn’t want you to be closer to their everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Picture this: You’re at a family gathering during the holidays, and as part of catching up, someone asks you if you’re seeing anybody.\u00a0 If you have no idea how to answer that question<\/a>, you’re in a situationship.\u00a0 Face it; if you were in a committed relationship, or if you were single, you’d know what to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Situationships aren’t all bad.\u00a0 In fact, they can be downright beneficial.\u00a0 If you meet someone<\/a> on a dating app, you’re not going to know right away if you want them to be your committed significant other.\u00a0 The situationship phase of getting to know someone gives you time to decide if you want to see this person on a more regular basis, or if you want to cut ties with this person and never see them again.\u00a0 Many people like to take their time to learn more about who they’ve met, and a situationship is a good way to go about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may find you prefer to be in a situationship at some point. Maybe you’re experimenting with how you want to arrange your dating life and the rest of your life, and having these non-committed situationships is easier for you. If that’s the case, just be sure you’re open about that when you start seeing someone so that they don’t think you’re looking for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally, situationships provide more romantic intimacy than friends-with-benefits without requiring the emotional commitment of a full relationship. Someone who’s just left a long-term relationship may find this to be exactly what they need when they want physical closeness but don’t want another relationship yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How long you continue to be in a situationship is basically up to you.\u00a0 If you can’t handle the indecision or just not knowing whether you’ll ever get a commitment out of this person, it’s time to end the situationship.\u00a0 If you’re ready to move forward but the other person doesn’t want to, if you begin to see red flags (such as finding hints that you’re actually the side piece in an affair<\/a>), if you sense growing incompatibility, if you feel like you’re being used and played around with, or if you don’t like that this person is still dating others, it’s time to end the situationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her interview with the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Albers noted that ghosting and fading away out of a situationship is really common, but it’s better to tell the other person that you want to stop seeing them. Make it clear, and don’t leave the other person wondering why you won’t answer their texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you haven’t had a talk about defining whether you’re in a relationship or not, that might be the best thing to do first; the worst that can happen is the other person says they don’t want to commit. (And hey, maybe they’ve been wondering about this, too. You never know until you ask.) If they totally don’t want to commit, that’s your cue to bow out and end the situationship. If they don’t want to commit just yet because you’re both still in the early days of seeing each other, though, you might want to give it a little more time and check again later. Remember, some people take longer to commit than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way, if you no longer want to be in the situationship, you can leave. You can’t force the other person to commit, but they can’t force you to continue being in limbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Situationships serve a purpose, but if they’re not what you’re looking for in the long term, then you need to rethink whether you want to keep meeting up with this person.\u00a0 That’s especially the case if you sense that they may actually be in another committed relationship or if you sense other red flags.\u00a0 If you start to notice that maybe they’re not as single as you thought, or you find other hints that all isn’t as it seems, check out their name in Spokeo’s People Search<\/a>, and check out addresses and phone numbers in Spokeo’s Reverse Address Lookup<\/a> and Reverse Phone Lookup<\/a>.\u00a0 Your well-being comes first when you start to get involved with other people, and you want to be sure that whatever form this coupling will take is one you’re comfortable with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suzanne S. Wiley is an editor and web content writer. She has been editing since 1989 and began writing in 2009, covering topics such as environmental issues and health. Wiley has also written about gardening, food, and history.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A look at what a situationship is and what its pros and cons are. They can serve a purpose but may lead to dissatisfaction if not handled well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":28845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[616],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating-advice-how-to"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/image\/AdobeStock_695165392-1.jpeg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat Are the Signs You’re in a Situationship?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. It’s Early Days<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. You Don’t Really Go on Dates or Have Contact Outside Dates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. There’s No Real Intimacy Other Than Sex<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. Your Plans Are Canceled a Lot<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5. Your Date Has No Desire to Define the Relationship<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
6. You Still Haven’t Met Any Friends or Family Even After Dating for a Long Time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
7. You Don’t Know Whether You’re “Seeing Anybody”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Are There Any Good Sides to Being in a Situationship?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How Long Should You Let a Situationship Go On?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How Do You Get Out of a Situationship?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n