His spare toothbrush lived in my mug for nine months and we still called it seeing each other. The mug was a chipped festival one. The brush was the same colour as mine, which I noticed every morning and then decided not to notice. We had a drawer logic. We did not have a word.

What is a situationship? It is a sexual and romantic almost that nobody will name. You get the habits of a relationship and the alibis of something casual. That is the whole definition. The rest is whether you can live in it.

People use the word when they are already tired. Friends use it when they are being kind about your mess. I use it now because "seeing each other" was doing too much work.

What is a situationship from the inside

It feels like a relationship on days when you are in the same room, and like a secret on days when you are not.

You know their fridge. You do not know if you can ask for a weekend. You have a side of the bed. You do not have a language for jealousy that does not sound like you have broken a rule nobody wrote down. You wait to see who texts first after a good night, as if going first would be a confession.

I have been in three. One I named, late. Two I let drift until the drift did the ending for me. The named one was almost kinder, because at least we both had to hear the word and decide what to do with it. The unnamed ones felt lighter at the start and heavier by the end. Light is not the same as free.

The feeling I remember most is the small edit. I would want to say "shall I come over Saturday" and I would say "are you about later" instead, so I could not be accused of assuming. He would want to say "I missed you" and he would say "that was fun." Fun is a small word for nine months of a toothbrush.

It also feels like homework you are not allowed to hand in. You collect evidence. The way he remembered your sister's name. The way he went quiet when you mentioned a wedding. You build a case for it being real, and a case for it being nothing, and you keep both files because you might need either one depending on his mood.

Talking about sex is easier, weirdly, than talking about the container. I could say "slower" before I could say "what are we." The body had a vocabulary. The calendar did not.

Why people stay

Convenience. Fear. Good sex. The hope that if you do not startle it, it will turn into the thing you want.

I stayed because I liked him, and because asking felt like I might lose the nights I already had. That is a poor bargain and a common one. I also stayed because dating again sounded like a second job, and he was already in my week. Inertia is a more honest word than chemistry, some months.

People stay because the other person is almost available. Almost is a drug. He was not seeing anyone else, as far as I knew. He also would not say he was not. The gap between those two facts is where I lived.

People stay because they do not want to be the one who made it serious. Serious, in this country, can sound like a demand. I have watched myself become very cool about a man I was not cool about. Cool is a costume. It comes off at 1am when you check whether he has viewed a story.

I am not going to moralise other people's arrangements. If both of you want it undefined, and you have actually said that, you have a deal. A deal can be kind. What I had, twice, was a deal I had inferred. Inferred deals fail in the same place: one person thinks they are being patient, the other thinks they are being free.

The third time, the one I named, I said "this is a situationship and I am starting to hate the word." He looked relieved and slightly caught. Relief is useful. Caught is useful. We tried to make it a relationship for a while. It did not take. At least we stopped pretending the mug was an accident.

Ask for more, or leave

You can ask. The ask is not a trap you are springing. It is information.

I asked badly, once. I did it after sex, still in his shirt, which is a room where nobody can be fair. He said he did not want to "put a label on it." I heard: you are too much. He may have meant: I am afraid. Both can be true. The useful bit was the no. I stayed another two months anyway, which made the no cheaper for him and more expensive for me.

A better ask, the time I named it, happened on a walk with coffee that was still too hot. Clothes on. Daylight. "I want this to be a relationship, or I want to stop. I do not want the middle." He did not have to love the sentence. He had to answer it.

If they cannot answer, that is an answer. If they ask for more time without a date on the time, that is also an answer. I have granted "more time" the way you grant a library book an extension. The book does not become a different book.

Leaving is allowed while you still like them. You do not have to wait until you resent the mug. You can go while the sex is still good, which feels wasteful and is often the least wasteful moment. I left one of them by becoming gradually worse at replies until he asked what was wrong, which is a coward's ending. I would say the walk sentence now and skip the weather.

If you want more and they want the middle, you leave. You do not negotiate yourself down to a smaller want and then call that maturity. I have called it maturity. It was just fear with better posture.

Asking for what you want in bed trained me for this more than I expected. The same muscle: one clear sentence, then a gap. You do not stack three needs so they can nod and remember none. You say the need. You let them meet it or not.

If you want it undefined

Then say so, out loud, and keep saying so when the habits creep.

Undefined is not the same as unspoken. Unspoken is how I got a toothbrush and a story I could not tell my friends without a long preamble. Undefined, if you mean it, sounds like: "I like this. I do not want a relationship. If that changes I will say. If you want more, tell me and we will stop." Then you do not spend Saturday introducing them to your sister "as a friend" while everyone does the maths.

You also do not collect couple furniture. A spare charger is already a vote. A drawer is a vote. Meeting the parents is a vote you cannot uncast with a joke. I let votes pile up and then claimed I had not called an election.

If you want it undefined because you are still getting over someone else, say that too. I have used a situationship as a waiting room. The other person is not a waiting room. They are a person who might be building a different story in the same bed.

Flirting over text can keep a situationship alive long past its useful life. A good-morning message is not nothing. It is also not a plan. I have lived on good-mornings. They are a poor diet.

Whether the word is useful: yes, as a diagnosis you share. No, as a personality. I do not want to be a person who collects almosts. I have been that person. The useful part of the word is that it lets you stop calling the almost a mystery. It is a shape. You can stay in a shape on purpose. You can also walk out of one.

I only named one of the three. Naming did not save it. It did save me a few months of pretending the silence was a language.

FAQ

What is a situationship exactly?

A situationship is a regular romantic and sexual connection that neither person will call a relationship, while it keeps doing relationship jobs: nights, habits, a little jealousy, a little future-talk that never lands. Casual dating is usually lighter and more honest about the lack of claim. A situationship is the claim you make with your time and refuse with your mouth.

Is a situationship the same as casual dating?

Not in my experience. Casual dating, when I have done it cleanly, had fewer keys and more sentences. A situationship has the furniture of a couple and the contract of a maybe. If you are both dating other people and you have said so, you may just be dating. If you are building a week around one person and calling it nothing, you are in the thing this word is for.

Can a situationship become a relationship?

Yes. Mine did, briefly, after I used the word. It can also stay stuck, or end. The conversion is not a prize you earn by being patient enough. It is a decision two people make. Patience without a conversation is just waiting in someone else's maybe.

How do you end a situationship?

You say you are ending it, and then you stop doing the habits. No last sleepover to be kind. No "we can still hang out" if hang out means the same bed. I ended one by fading and one by a sentence. The sentence was worse for an afternoon and better by the following month. Tell a friend the true version, not the cool one.

If you want a name, ask for one. If you want air, take it. Drift is a decision too, even when you pretend it is not.