Are situationships evil?

Or are we not holding ourselves accountable for staying in them?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Aka the last month of fall semester. I have two submissions a week until the first week of December. So naturally, as all students do, I went on Instagram for a healthy serving of scroll. Now the thing is I had avoided reels and scrolling for a long time, so I was new to the algorithm. Another new thing is that I am recently single! It’ll be 3 months of celibacy on November 9^th after a relationship of 5 years. I am 22. Yeah it’s crazy.

So I have not been up to date on the dating world and its terms and social movements. I was, however, with a man who was great, just not great for me. In the last 5 years, I realized I had internalized sexism in a very subtle way. Way before I got in a relationship, I believed that men and women could be friends without it risking turning into something. I even had a male ‘bestie’ for a while. Although I boasted about my male friendships, I still emphasized the ‘male’ part over the ‘friendship’ part. Even in my open-mindedness, I was still quite old-fashioned.

I tried to position myself against the age-old separation of genders and belief in unavoidable romance. However, in doing so, I reinforced the rift between the two. I thought I was attempting something new in interacting with men platonically, but my reaching out implied the existence of a gap between me and men. I always saw myself as separate from men, always trying to join them but knowing deep down I was on the other side of the chasm.

Being in a relationship with a man for so long helped me humanize men. I had to deconstruct my idea of men and accept that they had feelings, that they could be hurt, and that they weren’t all stereotypes. My ex wasn’t just a pretty boy – he was a human being.

Although things didn’t work out between us, I still respect him as a person and admire him for some things. He was the most generous person I knew: with his time, with his attention, with his care and, most importantly, with his love. We didn’t always understand each other, but I never felt his love for me waver.

So I cannot express my shock, surprise, and then anger, at the videos I got recommended on my newly reinstated Instagram algorithm. On the second day of scrolling, I started getting posts with messages such as “situationships are evil”, “men are evil” and “I’m sad I’m straight”. I acknowledge I may be out of the loop as a newly single gal, but the frustration still left me confused. These women expressing their discontent instead of disengaging puzzled me, because it just felt unproductive. Of course any emotion is valid. Anger and frustration are valid. But reacting this hard to an unfortunate situation will only give it more of your time and energy, things that are both limited. I am confused because the best thing to do when angry is either communicating it with the one that’s concerned, or disengaging. The truth it, the feeling expressed by those women in those posts will not help them get a boyfriend, if that is their main goal. It will not bridge the gap between men and women.

Positioning yourself against men as a woman is creating a divide between the two. We come back to the wrong emphasis, that of seeing someone as a ‘man’ before seeing them as a ‘human’. It is possible for men to have personalities but seeing them as ‘men’ before seeing them as ‘people’ is actually quite reductive. It makes women no better than the men from the 2000s saying “hey we gotta get some chicks for the party man!” without even knowing (or caring) who said chicks were.

“Do women just want a partner?” Or “On situationships”

I have been in a relationship for way too long to adopt this lingo. Maybe in a year I’ll be in a completely different place, but for now this is my position: I hate all the labels and degrees of relationships advertised online.

The way I see it, we all have relationships. I have a relationship with my friend, with my boss, with my father. ~Society~ has associated the term ‘relationship’ with commitment and romance and that pisses me off because what is everything else then?!? We all have relationships all of the time with everyone in our lives. It is normal to think that, once you start interacting with someone regularly, you are in some sort of relationship with them. What matters then is the mindset you approach said relationship with.

From the reels and posts I’ve seen (yes very precise empirical evidence), the women speaking seemed to want something from the man, and the man had not given those things to them. I lost the reel, but there was one woman saying she’d given care, affection and her time to a man only for him to not reciprocate it. I cannot help but wonder: why did you expect him to reciprocate those things? I was talking about generosity earlier, but if you give something expecting something else in return, that’s not generosity. If she did those things only to receive them in return, her actions become somewhat less genuine (in my opinion). The women posting the messaging of ‘men are evil’ and ‘situationship are evil’ approach relationships with men with expectations disregarding what’s really in front of them. Just as an example, if a man you’re getting to know is not demonstrative, why would you expect him to hold your hand in public? Even worse: why would you get mad that he won’t hold your hand in public, if he never made any moves to indicate that is something he would do? The problem is some women expect certain behaviours from men because they see their interlocutor as a ‘man’ before seeing him as a ‘person’. In allowing the man to be a person, the woman risks being disappointed and not in control of the relationship, risking not getting what she wants.

Same goes for situationships. I saw that post of a ‘situationship type texting’ and it was a girl being extremely hype texting a dry ass guy. Why did she keep texting him if he was not showing any signs of interest in the conversation? Once again, seems like the action was not motivated by observing reality but by the girl’s expectations of what she wanted out of the man without ever noticing what he was actually giving her. Then the anger is turned towards the men acting this way, but I believe this movement is not holding women accountable for the situations they choose to stay in. Will you be mad at a child for not being able to discuss religion with you if all you wanted was to explore theology with someone on a given day? Look at what’s in front of you instead of applying your expectations to reality, because that only guarantees disappointment.

That also ties in with focusing on men as ‘men’ and not as ‘people’. When you only see someone for their social position, you are automatically erasing their personality. There are definitely patterns arising among men that are most probably due to their socialization (asking questions, I’m looking at you), but associating a behaviour to ‘men’ as a whole is only furthering the divide between men and women and making it even harder for us all to see each other as ‘people’ that are really just looking to find companionship.

+ omg can we stop with the dating content online!?!?!?!? I don’t wanna see all that?!?!?!? I don’t care?!?!?! I have other hobbies besides thinking about dating someone?!?!?! Like can we decenter dating?!?! For the love of god?!?!? (as a non Christian LMAOO)

Love will guide you

I find myself quoting Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet for the third time in 2 days but I feel that I must:

“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

What I take away from these verses is that you cannot look for love and obsess with it. If you show up and participate by baring your heart to the world, love will find you and move your body where it must go. Finding love necessitates surrender. Surrender and trust. Both imply you’ll need to let go of what you so desire if you wish to find it elsewhere than in your dreams.