A manipulation tactic, a label to maintain power, a means to avoid commitment, a fundamentally unbalanced hook-up, a friends-with-benefits-type-of-thing, unrequited love, the girl I see on Fridays, the boy I’m keeping a secret, the lineman I was “just hanging out with” last semester. These circumstances evoke a familiarly vague term: “situationship.” Its colloquial usage helps us make sense of relations that are simultaneously ambiguous, physically intimate, and romantic—those that are not official but not unemotional. 

Even though approximately half of 18 to 34-year-old Americans have been in a situationship, when one asks for a formal definition, one is rarely returned a precise or consistent answer. In 2024, Michael R. Langlais and a team of social scientists set out to develop a definition of this seemingly undefinable arrangement and interviewed young adults asking them to describe the concept.

Based on their analysis, Langlais and his team defined it as “a romantic connection, often involving time spent together, affection, and sexual behaviors, but no clarity or label.” They also found that situationships can experience fluctuations of commitment “where one participant wants more from the relationship than the other.”

It makes sense why this situation would be a controversial one: most people don’t want relationships that are both indefinite and indeterminate. So why are so many of us in them?

Perhaps young people like the ideas of individuality and stability that are associated with “singlehood.” Hannah Tessler, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, has argued that the binary classification of “single” and “in a relationship” is often reductive—the perceived notion of “single” is at odds with the complexities of being a single person. These assumptions could reinforce norms of marriage and the nuclear family—things that Wesleyan students might be wary of. What Tessler calls the “relationship status paradigm” assumes people are either actively seeking or waiting for a relationship, positioning singlehood as an interim state which people will eventually escape.

Situationships are endemic to the liberal arts college. Wesleyan students are in them almost as much as they complain about being in them. The University’s Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Christine Curley has been researching situationships on campus in the Sexuality & Well-Being Lab (SWB). According to Emerson Rabow ’25, a senior research assistant and SWB lab manager, research on the psychological impacts of situationships are inconclusive.

“While they can be fulfilling for some, they often correlate with lower life satisfaction and higher distress, particularly when expectations aren’t aligned,” Rabow wrote in an email to The Argus. “Some studies found negative psychological effects, such as distress and decreased life satisfaction. Others suggested no significant difference in psychological well-being between casual and committed relationships. Emotional reactions depend on individual motivations and expectations—some experience fulfillment, while others regret hookups due to partner choice or unmet emotional needs. Situationships can provide sexual pleasure and emotional intimacy for those who prefer non-committal relationships. Those with avoidant attachment styles may feel more comfortable in situationships than in traditional relationships.”

In 2022, The Colgate University Marroon-News published a piece titled “In Defense of Situationships,” in which the author argued that students’ reluctance to label their relationships comes from a desire to enjoy the college experience without committing to traditional monogamous relationships. College students can reap the benefits of exclusivity, intimacy, and love—and avoid the pressures and formality associated with a title.

As researchers T.B. Jamison and C. M. Sanner explain in “Relationship Form and Function,” the traditional sequence of romantic relationships—one that our parents might be familiar with—begins by asking someone out. It is then followed by the much anticipated first date, and then, ideally, more dates which build commitment. The casual dating model is a widespread one. It’s been pervasive in America for decades but remains peculiarly rare at Wesleyan. Curley’s lab has labeled them as the “modern dating structure,” a modality outlined by Emma Nielsen ’25, a senior research assistant at the SWB Lab.

“Hookups, especially on college campuses, have become increasingly common but humans also have an innate need for love and belonging,” Nielsen wrote in an email to The Argus. “Although many situationship partners are likely not in love with one another, they are fulfilling a part of this need for emotional connection, at least more than the average one-time hookup. But what we in the lab are trying to understand is if situationships are enough, can you get the sexual fulfillment and emotional connection you need to be happy and healthy in these relationships?”

Rather than an immediate rejection of this explanatory terminology, we should understand “situationships” as context-dependent or situational. They can be mutual, one-sided, or anywhere in between—yet their vagueness makes them fundamentally confusing. Instead of seeing them as a hardship to bear, perhaps they reflect our generation’s desire for love and itch for emotional connection amongst the realities of modern love.

Kiran Eastman is a member of the class of 2027 and can be reached at kbleakneyeas@wesleyan.edu.