Every generation thinks they invented heartbreak, but this one gave it a rebrand. Welcome to the era of situationships, where young adults have mastered the art of being together without ever actually being together. It's not quite dating, not quite hooking up, and definitely not a relationship—it's the romantic equivalent of being stuck in traffic: you're not moving forward, but you're too invested to get off the road.
The blueprint is always the same: a 30-day streak on TikTok that feels like intimacy, duoing on two-player obbies in Roblox, plans that almost look like dates, a 96% matching rate on Spotify Blend, emotional conversations that border on therapy—all wrapped up in plausible deniability. The people involved are building something, sure, but it’s made of red flags and false hope, and everyone knows how that house eventually falls.
Labeling the unlabeled
The irony of situationships is that we had to name that thing that refuses to be named, pretending that giving it a label would make the ambiguity hurt less. But maybe that's the point—we need language for things that confuse us the most.
A situationship is what happens when two people choose each other everyday but refuse to admit it out loud. There’s affection without accountability, intimacy without intention. You do everything couples do—minus the one thing that would make it real: the conversation.
Some students frame it almost like a bargain, like Obiwan, an ID124 student from the Diplomacy and International Affairs (AB-DIA) program, calling it "a purchase of affection and companionship using vulnerability as currency. It even has its own fiscal policy: don't give too much, don't give too little. Sprinkle an element worth obsessing over, or I guess yearning over.”
It’s a transactional intimacy—measured to feel never quite enough to secure, but just enough to keep you hooked.
Meanwhile, Mimi, another ID124 student from the AB-DIA program, sees it as “the new term for lovers without an exclusive label in their relationship. A situationship is mainly for two people who like only the kilig in a relationship and not the responsibilities of being someone’s constant,” referring to the thrill without the terror, the high without the commitment.
Stripping it down to its core, Grif, an ID119 Multimedia Arts (AB-MMA) student shared that when characterizing a situationship, the whys or “the specific motivation is less important than defining the relationship. It’s all about the absence of mutual clarity,” between the people involved.
What binds these definitions together is the common thread of avoidance. Situationships exist because people have convinced themselves that wanting something is more dangerous than having nothing at all. So many get stuck in the before, in the almost, in the maybe-if-I-wait-long-enough-they’ll-choose-me. It’s called casual, chill. It’s called anything except what it actually is: cowardice dressed up as freedom.
Awkward pause called forever
The realization of being in a situationship rarely arrives with fanfare. For many, it’s a gradual awareness that builds over time. There’s no manual for recognizing when casual has crossed into complicated, as the confusion is a slow burn of realizing what was once effortless has become exhausting.
For Telep, an ID124 AB-DIA student, the moment came through a conversation rather than a confrontation. "It was like a silent agreement after me and that person talked about our fear of commitment.” The acknowledgement was there, but so was the decision to leave things unnamed.
Bush, an ID123 student from the AB-MMA program, points to the confusion itself as the indicator of when she is in a situationship. “When your connection with each other is getting kind of romantic, but you do not know what actually is going on between you two,” underscoring that the feelings are present in the situation, but the acknowledgement isn’t.
Meanwhile, entering a situationship was less about confusion and more about availability for Liane, an ID124 student from the AB-DIA program. "It's the commodity of actually having to talk to someone instead of being left alone with your thoughts of loneliness. This is not the truth for everyone but at the time I was just okay with whatever was served in front of me whether that be a relationship or a situationship. It's a connection,” she shared.
Li, an AB-MMA ID124 student, puts it more harshly: “This generation is so desperate to love that we take literally anything that comes our way.” Loneliness has become structural, baked into a culture that promises connection but delivers isolation with better lighting.
The emotional toll that comes with the uncertainty is the exhausting performance of pretending you’re fine with ambiguity when every part of you is screaming for something solid—leaving people caught between hoping things will change and knowing they probably won’t. The question changes from being whether the relationship is moving forward to whether staying in place is worth the cost of waiting.
Romance in the age of Wi-Fi
Technology came with the promise of bringing people closer together. But instead, it built the perfect infrastructure for keeping people at arm’s length while pretending otherwise. Dating apps offer endless options with a single swipe. Texting allows contact without real presence. Social media lets us curate connections without committing to it. The result? A generation fluent in digital intimacy but illiterate in the language of accountability.
Obiwan describes it bluntly: “Technology made it easier to connect, and because of that, there's this obvious lack of effort to actually cultivate a relationship because you can always find a new one. We don't cherish novelty anymore because it's now replaceable! Relationships are now reduced to consumer choices!”
The architecture of ambiguity runs deeper than just having more options. These days, people maintain entire situationships through calculated digital breadcrumbs—liking a story at 2 a.m., responding just enough to seem interested but slow enough to seem unbothered, posting photos that could be for anyone, but are clearly meant for one person.
As Liane observes, technology has reshaped expectations entirely. “Easier connections means more options, more reasons to stay in a non-committed relationship because there are other fish in the sea, per say. Love is not supposed to be like that, love is supposed to be persevering and long-lasting.”
Technology definitely didn’t invent commitment issues, but it gave them better tools and prettier interfaces.
Fear of wanting
The fear lingering underneath all situationships is about being seen wanting something and not getting it. So, instead of risking rejection, people choose the safety of ambiguity, convincing themselves that keeping options is the same as staying free. Optionality culture has made definition feel like strategy rather than stalling.
The anxiety economy of modern dating runs on this exact currency: the fear of seeming too eager, too available, too invested. Texting back too quickly makes you desperate. Asking “what are we” makes you needy. The rules are arbitrary but the consequences feel real so people perform indifference even when they’re falling apart inside, measuring every message and calculating every move to avoid appearing like they care too much.
For Fatima, an AB-DIA ID124 student, the anxiety of a situationship was constant and draining. "Of course, I wanted to work a 'relationship' out of whatever we had between us. It did cause anxiety because every day it felt like I was trying to appease him."
Li describes the anxiety differently, not as discomfort, but as familiarity. "It was anxious, but familiar. I was used to chaos, so uncertainty felt like comfort. It kept me distracted from myself, and walking away meant finally facing what I'd been avoiding."
The paradox is that in trying to protect oneself from rejection, we guarantee a different kind of loss, not the sharp pain of being told ‘no,’ but the dull ache of never asking at all.
Maybe next time
If situationships thrive on ambiguity, then the antidote is brutal clarity—about what you want, what you’ll accept, and when to walk away. But clarity requires something the current dating ecosystem actively discourages: admitting you want anything at all.
Not everyone agrees the problem is new. Vito, an ID124 AB-DIA student argues that the problem isn’t new. “Romance today is the same as the romance of our ancestors, just expressed differently, but the pure feeling is unchanged. I'm sure that in the past, meron din mga situationships (even if the term didn't exist), meron din mga nang-ghost, nangbe-breadcrumb. Why else do we relate to love songs and love stories even if they were written decades ago?" Heartbreak, he suggests, has always existed and we've just given it new names.
Meanwhile, Grif pushed back against treating any of these as solvable through platitudes “Yes, there is wisdom to be shared in romance, but superlative and simple statements are too reductionist to be the case for literally every complex interaction of romance. Humans are such sensitive and complex instruments—it cannot be boiled down to buzzwords,” explaining that love resists easy answers and pretending otherwise does more harm than good.
Still, some advice cuts through the noise. Li puts it bluntly: "Touch grass! You are not the exception. If they wanted you, they would choose you, not keep you in orbit." Ales, an ID121 student from the Creative Industries Management (AB-CM) program, echoes the same truth from a different angle. "If he wanted a relationship, he would've said it. A situationship doesn't turn into love, it just turns into wasted time."
Sometimes both people are complicit in the uncertainty, both scared, both waiting for the other to flinch first. Sometimes it's mutual comfort in uncertainty. But whether it's one-sided longing or shared avoidance, the result is the same: a relationship built on what isn't said rather than what is.
If 'what are we?' feels too scary to ask, the answer is already there—you’re just not ready to hear it.
