Vivian Tong

My friend and I were sitting in the hallway of LDub’s fifth floor, musing about us both being single. Valentine’s Day was coming up, and I had recently ended yet another situationship. 

Our tastes in guys are vastly different, but have landed us in the same boat. We chose to ride that boat together. Posing as a fake couple, we will sail to a Valentine’s Day evening reservation at one of our favorite restaurants, House of Naan. My friend joked that it was a competition: if one of us found someone then they could claim the reservation, while the other would have to spend Valentine’s night at the dining hall. Unless one of us downloads a dating app, chances are extremely high that we’re going together.

I have spent every Valentine’s Day alone despite having been in two relationships. Blame it on unfortunate timing, or call it a protest of the capitalist undertones of the holiday. Either way, the closer February 14 crept up on us, the more I knew I had to end my last situationship. Side note: to that person, you are wonderful and deserve the world, this is just my Carrie Bradshaw moment. 

Yale’s culture practically breeds situationships. I have heard several peers compare dating to an extracurricular activity. Every other part of our lives is so fast-paced that if a relationship cannot keep up, we end it. When I say ‘cannot keep up’, I mean two distinct concepts: a situationship stalling — and ultimately ending — at a roadblock and a situationship failing to follow the trajectory of our carefully G-Cal’d path.

Often what keeps me in a situationship is the initial investment made: time. I love meeting someone at 1 a.m. and then conversing until sunrise. In college, it is easy to skip the small-talk phase. We live together. We’ve heard secrets spilled in seminars and have witnessed countless mental breakdowns — over psets, homesickness, dining hall chicken? It’s too hard to tell… In high school, the act of going to dinner with someone could be a date, but in college, its accessibility renders it casual. 

Perhaps the biggest threat to a situationship is access. A friend remarked that she could see herself being compatible with so many people on campus. Almost too many. In that sense, we can be picky when it comes to relationships because there are plenty of viable options. This applies to friendships too. A senior from my hometown loved the friend group she ultimately found but admitted grieving the infinite untapped potential on campus. She believed that she could have created countless other friend groups at Yale. Infinite combinations of people she already met and of people she would probably never meet.  

In an effort to speed the filtering process along, I started my most recent situationship with a checklist. The items were added after each of my previous situationships ended. One of my favorite songs is “Lesson Learned” by Alicia Keys and John Mayer, so I refuse to call any experience a waste of time. Though I wanted to create a systematic method of measuring compatibility, it always came down to a vibecheck. In my past situationships, our incompatibilities usually meant both of us somehow compromising our sense-of-self. 

There are so many questions to ask when debating the future of a situationship. Do you want to spend the majority of your time with this person? Do you like who you are around this person? Does mutual understanding come easily? Do your energies match? For that last question, I imagine constructive and deconstructive wave interference. Are your peaks and troughs compatible?

No matter how sweet it begins, a situationship usually boils down to one person wanting to pursue a relationship and the other not wanting to commit. To paraphrase my friend, one person may want an intimate connection and the attention it comes with but ultimately not want to limit their options. Meanwhile, the other is ready to dive straight into a relationship.

Another consideration in the world of situationships is how small the Yale community can feel. College takes the six degrees of separation concept to another level. To become official would feel more official. News spreads fast. Are you completely sure you want to be associated with that person, assuming a new shared identity through a label? Okay, I will admit that as a twin, I grew up being perceived as half of a whole, so I may harbor some bitterness. 

In college, we have such easy access to each other — we can be as involved in each other’s lives as we want. In this environment, a situationship is less scary. There is an out. And it’s okay to leave.

I personally still see value in situationships, despite the ambiguity they invite. If your life is a train, then that person may ride with you for a few fun moments, and then ultimately hop off at the right stop. That is perfectly fine. After all, we left our hometowns for a reason. Meet people. Make messes. Just know when to end the situationship before the person riding with you misses their stop.