If I had a dollar for every time I heard one of my friends was “talking” to a guy, I’d definitely have enough money to finally upgrade my iPhone storage.

As someone who stays on the fringe of Knoxville nightlife and doesn’t care much for social media, I’ve never had the chance to experience a genuine talking stage. A real situationship. But the idea has always fascinated me.

So what is the situationship, exactly?

I asked the experts to help me define it.

“I would say a situationship is … a type of relationship without a label. So it’s a romantic partnership — but you aren’t boyfriend or girlfriend,” Norah Wolfe, 18, said. “You’re with them, but something is preventing you from fully committing. I mean … a situationship kinda implies there are issues.”

“I would describe it as a toxic relationship,” Allison Reed, 18, said. “You’re stuck in something where you obviously have emotions towards this person — not just physical, but maybe love, and it’s not healthy. It tears people down. People get so convinced it will work out.”

Many referred to it as a rite of passage or a “cannon event” while dating.

A cannon event is a term used to describe something traumatic, embarrassing or generally negative that ultimately results in character development. The term was first used in the 2023 movie “Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse” and then popularized on TikTok.

“I feel like it’s more normal to see somebody in a situationship than to see them in an actual, committed relationship with somebody that they value and somebody that values them,” Reed said.

From what I can gather, situationships are somewhat unavoidable in today’s dating world. Everyone has a story. While low-commitment relationships based around casual sex have been around since the dawn of time, the situationship as it is today is uniquely Gen Z.

“Um, I think it’s definitely, like, a Gen Z thing. I remember my parents talking … like, they would just go on a date with someone, and you’d be considered dating,” Macy Moody, 19, said. “I feel like social media has definitely complicated it.”

It wasn’t an immediate switch. We didn’t wake up in 2020 and decide commitment was, like, so last year. Hookup culture has changed how young people approach courtship. You couldn’t send a nude in 1985.

Snapchat, the massively popular social networking app, serves as a virtual dating rolodex for young people. While not explicitly a dating app, Snapchat’s default settings make it easy to “talk” to 10 people at once.

“I feel like the prevalence of (situationships) has definitely increased with social media,” Wolfe said. “It’s so much easier to create a relationship with someone, just because we have so much easy access to each other through social media. I feel like it’s almost easier to create, like, a connection.”

It’s no longer such a social taboo to be sleeping with multiple people at once. Having a baby out of wedlock no longer means the ruin of the family name. Casual sex doesn’t make you a slut. You’re just a young adult, experiencing life and having fun in your 20s.

When casual sex is normalized — nay, expected — in a relationship without commitment, it raises a fair question: Are situationships debasing intimacy?

“It honestly kind of made it harder to be able to get into a committed relationship because it’s like, ‘do you want this to go further? Are you going to just act committed, but secretly you have side h–s on your Snapchat?’” Kaitlyn Dobbins, 19, said. “Are you gonna act committed for six months and then drop me for some new b—-?”

While the situationship provides relational mobility, it also seems to breed mistrust.

“Just — it seems easier to be deceptive in real relationships after so long of having situationships, where you are 100% not the only person I’m talking to and vice versa,” Dobbins added.

There is nothing wrong with dating around. But that’s dating — in a situationship, you are investing without return. There is still physical intimacy and months of contact, but you aren’t “together” in the traditional sense. You’re running in place.

“I think when people think of situationships, they think, ‘oh, no strings attached. Like, we’re just going to have fun. I can just, like, hook up with this person and it’ll be fine.’ But I think, regardless, there’s always gonna be strings attached,” Moody said. “Like if you’re spending a lot of time with someone, there’s no way you don’t catch feelings for them. There are always strings.”

It seems situationships — even those without sex — require a level of emotional intimacy that would be better reserved for monogamy.

“Since there are no really defined boundaries, telling someone the way you really feel if you do catch feelings, you just don’t really do,” Shayla Smith, 19, said. “Like, if you wanted something more but know they are seeing other people, you just don’t say anything. Because they would probably say no, and then it would be weird, and you wouldn’t see them at all.”

It seems the no-rules nature of the situationship can often lead to someone pulling the emotional short straw. One person wants more than the other, but having a commitment to no commitment means emotional vulnerability is off the table.

Having an aversion to commitment is normal when you’re young. For a long time, the social norm stated that the purpose of dating was marriage. You didn’t date unless you were ready for a lifelong commitment.

With the freedom social media affords users — the infinite options it provides, it seems senseless to commit when you could just swipe to the next. Connection is at our fingertips, and it’s easier to find than ever.

Infinite people that might like you, might want to hook up with, might want to tell you you’re pretty. Social media gives us the opportunity to satisfy our very human desire for validation. But it’s indulgent. Unhealthy. It fills a void that was never meant to be filled.

Attention takes precedence over commitment. Thus, the situationship is born.

With the help of hookup culture, the situationship has become an inescapable phase in the formation of relationships, or rather, just an established thing people do when they want to date. I feel like it’s not fair to say “formation of relationships” when 98% of the situationships I’ve witnessed end in tears, burned hoodies and 24/7 jazz music because “it’s the only thing that keeps me from crashing out.”

If Gen Z seemed happy with the situationship, I would empower them to keep going. Frolic in the gray area. But it just doesn’t seem like they are.

I would implore anyone reading who is currently in or considering entering a situationship to ask yourself what you really want out of the relationship.

Would you care if you met someone, talked for months, exchanged intimate pictures and then, out of the blue, they ghosted you? And when they do, you aren’t allowed to get mad because that’s what you signed up for?

If the answer is yes, then go right ahead. If the answer is no, I’d sit this one out. You won’t be alone forever, I promise. There are less toxic ways to get to know someone.

If you are afraid of commitment, maybe just don’t date. And if you want casual sex, maybe try Tinder.

“It was terrible,” Smith said. “When I was in it, I guess I couldn’t tell. But it was terrible. Just terrible.”

Claire Thatcher is a freshman at UT this year studying journalism and media. She can be reached at [email protected].

Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.