Before Hinge prompts and “open to short-term dating”. Before TikTok tarot readings diagnosing your avoidant lover, there was Carrie Bradshaw and Mr Big. The original will-they-won’t-they, television’s most glamorous cautionary tale, the blueprint for the modern situationship.

 Rewatching Sex and the City has never made me feel more validated in regards to tumultuous relationships.

Love, But Make It Unclear

Over the past few years, the term situationship has cemented itself in our cultural lexicon. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a situationship as a “romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established.”

If it wasn’t for yearning and messy emotions we wouldn’t have been blessed with some of the greatest pieces of art ever made. Or some of the most gut-wrenching poetry ever read. Or even some of the most heartbreaking films ever watched.

This almost seems straightforward, almost appears harmless. That is, until you realise that nothing to do with human emotions was ever straightforward.

Situationships aren’t a modern concept — Gen Z have simply rebranded this phenomenon. On my TikTok feed I’ve seen countless opinions on the matter, and one that stood out to me posed an existential question:

It seems like everyone you know has been personally victimised by a situationship.

According to Hinge, over a third of 12,000 users found themselves in a situationship in the last year, despite 75% confessing in a separate study that they wanted a true relationship.

“Which role do you play in the situationship — the one with commitment issues, or the one with no self-worth?”

If this is the case, why are we collectively normalising emotional ambiguity?

The Original Situationship

Carrie and Big mastered this contradiction decades ago. Big didn’t want labels. Didn’t want to define the relationship. Didn’t want commitment. But he wanted her.

Another statistic reveals that half of 18- to 34-year-old Americans have experienced such an esteemed status. These figures are laughable considering 90% of Gen Z Hinge daters say they want to find love.

Carrie, like many of us, mistook intensity for intimacy. Their chemistry was undeniable — the waiting, the wondering, the decoding. We have all been in Carrie’s shoes. There’s something perversely seductive about the undefined; it feels almost cinematic. We inherently crave the chaos of a 1AM “you up?” text. Could it be we find the reality of stability boring, the same way Carrie found Aidan?

Revisiting Sex and the City, now I realise that Big wasn’t mysterious he was just avoidant and the ambiguity that once read as an epic love story reflects the reality many people face in the dating world.

There lies the cruelty of the situationship, you can’t be upset because technically nothing was promised. It feels like something. Until it doesn’t.

Addicted to the Maybe

Leja Voit, my beloved confidant in matters of the heart, doesn’t romanticise it. “Hate them,” she says. “I was in a situationship after a breakup, with my ex-boyfriend. I feel like at first you don’t look at the situation as serious, just a bit of fun really.”

That’s the stale part we don’t make films about, the waiting period which feels like you’re in limbo.

Leja continues, “I feel as though nobody wants to be in a situationship, it just seems to happen when usually one side is afraid of making a mistake; whether that be committing to the wrong person, giving up their sense of freedom or just having the responsibility of loving another.”

Maybe we inherited this script from Carrie. The idea that love should feel like chasing someone down a New York street. That instability equals depth. That the undefined is somehow more romantic than the secure.

“But as feelings are involved — whether you admit it or not — with time you’re attached to that person. You’re giving another person yourself, your time, your effort, your heart, with no certainty of loyalty nor real commitment. The situation becomes confusing and complicated.”

The real tragedy is if 90% of Gen Z want love, and 75% say they want a real relationship, then ambiguity isn’t preference it’s a choice.

Which led me to wonder, if half of us have been in one, maybe the question isn’t why they exist. Maybe it’s why we keep accepting less than we say we want.

If love is what we truly crave, perhaps we should all actively choose to stop running from it and hiding behind the concept of a situationship. Love is a choice as much as it is a feeling.

What We Actually Want

The reality is, Carrie and Big should never have ended up together — he never fully chose her, and she never chose herself.

Have you ever been in a situationship? Are you the one with commitment issues, or the one who kept hoping? Email us your situationship story at leonormoreirainfo@gmail.com — I’d love to hear it.