Another defining characteristic of a situationship is that the relationship neither grows nor ends; it exists in this strange emotional and physical limbo where you never have a sense of security.

You also never get closure, because you can’t break up with someone you never dated – even if you did all the things a couple would do – so these ‘relationships’ always feel ambiguous and hard to process. Some people are able to navigate these types of relationships really successfully. They are OK with the lack of commitment and consistency and the innate convenience of these situations. People high in sociosexuality – a trait that increases our interest in casual, uncommitted sex – tend to be more receptive to this arrangement. You get the emotional connection but in a compartmentalised way so that you can still equally enjoy your freedom.

When the dating world has never been more expansive, some people may actually prefer these types of relationships. But when one person doesn’t feel the same way as the other, stronger feelings of unrequited love emerge. We can also experience significant resentment, anger, even grief directed toward the other person in a situationship. We are frustrated at not getting what we want, but perhaps underneath that we are even more frustrated at ourselves for letting it get this far.

Why do situationships and unrequited love hurt so much? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years, and I think I have some answers. The first is that they make us feel like a failure. We approach this situation with so many expectations and a deep vulnerability. Perhaps we start to tell people about this new person in our life, how excited we are, full of hope – we have an idea in our mind of a future with this person. When it doesn’t work out, we feel like we weren’t good enough.

“I never knew where we stood”: why it’s so hard to get over a situationship