It happens to the best of us. Dating culture has all but died and turned into a twisted new game of “who can fall last.” Who can hold out the longest on the other, who is going to ask the other person out? Situationships were everywhere. It seems like unless people are older, in both age and in college status, you don’t see very many people in real relationships. But you do see a lot of hand-holding, touching, kissing, flirting, and more between a lot of people who are avidly not dating. You may have even experienced one of these types of relationships yourself but haven’t even notice. You’ve found yourself entwined with someone who makes sure no one else pursues you but also find yourself constantly wondering, “What are we?” So many of us have been caught up in Situationships, and so many have been burned as an outcome.

The definition of a Situationship is loosely translated to “a relationship characterized by one or more unresolved, interpersonal conflicts, often confused with dating.” The question is, when did “Situationship” culture become so prominent? I could have sworn just two years ago in high school, everyone was begging to be officially tied to someone. Yet now in college it’s against some unspoken rule to call someone your girlfriend or boyfriend, because that leaves you no room to trap and ensnare other people you think are worthy of your lack of attention. What is so appeasing about stringing along more than one person? What is our generation coming to where we can’t even be faithful to one person willing to give their all to us?

By now we’ve all probably have either seen one unfold or have been in one ourselves. Situationships are the “relationships” where you see two people constantly flirting, always together, cuddling, calling each other pet names, etc. Basically, anything you’d see in a relationship. Except for one problem: when people ask “Are you dating?” they always answer, “No,” or may even add on, ”We’re just friends.” What? Since when do friends have sexually intimate relationships with each other? Has our generation become overly intimate, or are we just too afraid to admit to a blatantly obvious relationship we have?

There seems to be no dating anymore, everyone is falling for each other, hooking up, and falling into a vicious cycle of, “We aren’t, like, official or anything.”

The burn of losing someone you were this close with has to be the worst outcome of the entire ordeal, and it’s what makes Situationships so toxic. A break up is easier to handle, two people falling out of love is natural and happens all the time. But when you “break up” in a situationship, you are left without closure. You never found out whether they had real feelings for you, or whether what you two had was legit. Just, all of a sudden, they stop treating you like they used to. No more good-morning texts, no more 20 second hugs, no more making-out. And you’re left spiraling emotionally out of control because you know you had strong feelings, but you never admitted them. The worst is when you admit your feelings after and the response is, “I don’t know why you felt that way, we were just friends. Nothing more.” Nothing more.

People allow themselves to get into situationships for a variety of reasons, one reason that is most common is confused emotions. You have a strong crush on them, they may even take a liking to you, but neither of you do anything about it. Maybe you’re both too afraid of looking like the love-sick puppy, neither wanting to admit to the crush because each ego is bigger than the other. Or maybe you’re shy and are afraid to tell the other person because you aren’t sure how they’d react. Plus you’re already getting the quirks of being in a relationship with them so why push it and possibly scare them away? Whatever the reason, we allow ourselves to have our hearts toyed with and emotions strangled every time we have to answer, “No, we’re just friends.” But it should not be like this at all.

I’ve asked countless times, why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Shelve away our feelings and pretend that these new-age relationships aren’t hurting us? Recently I’ve found the answer, it's the fear of rejection. Millennials have one huge thing we all have in common, we were brought up to be number one. Always first, we had to get the big trophy and we had to get the highest grades, we had to always win. We were pushed to push ourselves to the limit and then more, we could never lose. That fear has translated into our personal lives, how could be deal with the pain or being turned down by someone we love? Thats not winning, rejection is not coming in first. So we don’t put ourselves through that misery and settle for the next best thing, a Situationship. Where you can chill, date and everything else without have to commit or show your true feelings. And that's pretty good right? Wrong.

There should be no repercussions to having feelings, we should not be ashamed of falling in love with someone. Who cares if you have to be the first one to say it, say it! There should be no fear of going up to someone and saying “I like you” and taking it from there. The worst that could happen is they either don’t reciprocate the feelings or stop being close to you. And the best possible outcome is you get yourself out of this whirlwind of mixed emotions and settle down with them. Either way, you’d be glad you did it. A Situationship is probably the most toxic relationship we have created for ourselves and it has to end somewhere.