Why situationships feel safer, but cost more than they give
· Citizen
Like shoelaces, modern relationships have become loosened and come with their own respective emotional consequences. Situationships are often dismissed as harmless, but it’s also how Gen Zs and now others are managing risk.
Psychologist Jogini Packery of the South African College of Applied Psychology said that the flipside of situationships, or the casual freedom it provides, is a response to how lovers’ relationships damage people around them.
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A false sense of security
The idea that commitment guarantees stability has been dismantled by lived experience and not by ideology, she said.
“Many young adults are not rejecting connection, but the traditional framework that once promised security and often delivered something far messier,” she said. “Young people draw from their own experiences of witnessed marriages and ‘committed relationships’ and seem to have decided that there is a false sense of security and fulfilment in traditional commitment,” she said.
What is a situationship?
It is a recalibration that has created space for relationships that exist without clear definition, where intimacy is present but accountability is less certain.
“A situationship allows people to experience connection and intimacy without fully exposing themselves to the vulnerability and accountability that come with commitment,” she said, adding that the appeal lies in maintaining proximity without fully stepping into the risk of loss.
The trade-off, however, is significant. Where a defined relationship offers a shared understanding of expectations, situationships often require individuals to interpret meaning on their own. That lack of clarity can create a persistent undercurrent of strain.
Packery noted that when labels fall away, so too does the sense of relational grounding many people have been conditioned to rely on.
“They may start questioning where they stand or whether their needs are valid,” she said, warning that this uncertainty can increase emotional labour as individuals attempt to read signals instead of feeling secure within the connection.
No need for traditional labels
Despite this, she cautioned against reducing the conversation to a simple rejection of commitment. Some people are actively redefining intimacy on their own terms, outside of traditional expectations shaped by culture, religion and social pressure.
In those cases, the absence of a label does not necessarily signal dysfunction.
“There is nothing inherently unhealthy about moving away from traditional labels if there is still clarity, communication and mutual understanding,” she said.
Yet not all ambiguity is intentional or healthy. Avoiding definition becomes a way of sidestepping responsibility. Commitment, she said, requires a willingness to be seen, to align expectations and to accept the possibility of rejection.
People who are shaped by unstable or unsafe relational histories may find that level of exposure can feel untenable.
“Many people would rather stay in a space of uncertainty than risk that level of emotional exposure,” she said.
Without a clear sense of where a relationship stands, anxiety can escalate, particularly for people already prone to insecurity. Even individuals who typically function from a place of emotional stability may find themselves unsettled over time.
Packery called this “emotional suspension”; invested enough to feel deeply, but not secure enough to relax.
In the absence of defined expectations, people may also start to question whether they are entitled to express their needs at all. That hesitation can lead to self-silencing, where concerns are minimised to preserve the connection.
“Over time, that disconnect between what they feel and what they express can become more distressing than the ambiguity,” she said.
Fear of being alone can distort reality
Packery said a fear of being alone can also distort how people assess the value of a connection, making it difficult to distinguish between genuine emotional reciprocity and the simple comfort of not being by oneself.
While situationships are often criticised for fueling unequal emotional investment, Packery said imbalance is not unique to undefined relationships. Structured partnerships and even marriages are not immune, either. The difference lies in whether expectations are acknowledged and addressed. Where they are not, distress tends to follow.
To manage uncertainty Packery suggested a more grounded approach.
“Assess the relationship as it exists, rather than what it might become. If any relationship is consistently creating confusion, anxiety or unmet needs, it may be preventing your emotional growth, rather than supporting it,” she said.
“Also, a healthy relationship does not need a label so that the world understands it, and in the same breath, a defined relationship does not mean you are in a healthy relationship.”