If you’ve ever swiped right on a dating app, chances are you’ve found yourself in a Situationship at some point—whether you ever realised it or not.
We were as curious about this term as you are (unless you’ve suffered already).
In case you’re unfamiliar, a situationship is that grey area between a fling and a committed relationship.
You’re physically engaged with someone and might even be emotionally invested in them, but choose not to enter into a relationship.
Sounds absurd at first glance, right?
If you find someone physically attractive and are emotionally invested in them, why not just be with them?
Well, because it is indeed absurd, but a phenomenon that’s gradually (actually, rapidly) gaining popularity.
Why does this happen? Why are so many people stuck in these undefined relationships?
The answer often lies in the very apps designed to help us find love.
How Dating Apps won’t let you settle down.
Let’s start from the basics. Most dating apps use a rating system for matchmaking- The Elo rating.
What they do is that they rank all the profiles based on their previous activity. If you’re getting a lot of matches, the robot behind the screen would consider you as desirable and show you to more people.
But that isn’t the problem.
The Elo rating system is used not just in dating apps, but also in Chess, and even e-commerce companies and educational systems.
The problem arises when these companies start tinkering with it for their benefit.
In a news report published in 2022, Tinder made public that it has now moved away from the Elo rating to prioritising active users on the app.
This means you’re more likely to be seen if you’re swiping and chatting regularly.
So your chances of finding “the one” would increase only if you continue to use the app.
This nudges you to actively use the app, talk to more people, and match with new people.
But it isn’t just Tinder.
Bumble, for example, uses FOMO to keep you engaged. If you don't send a message within 24 hours of matching, your match disappears, subtly nudging you to talk to new people even if you were already in an engaging conversation.
But again, not just Bumble.
A similar tactic is used by Hinge, the app meant to be deleted.
On one hand, it has put a limitation on the number of likes you can send and the number of active chats you can have.
On the other, it’ll send you a harmless notification each day- “Your most compatible matches have been refreshed”.
It wants you to talk to your matches and engage with them, but would subtly say “Hey, you might want to check these people out too. We think they’re the most compatible with you.”
It’s somewhat ironic how apps that initially launched to make you fall in love now use small nudges and psychological tactics to keep you away from settling down with one person.
Dating Apps and the breakdown of Relationships.
Now that we know that Dating Apps would want you to be more active on their apps than find you a good match, let’s understand how that affects relationships.
The incentives for increasing your app activity keep you in a perpetual comparative mode. While you may be having an engaging conversation with someone, you’d keep a distance- a distance required to compare them to another match of yours.
Comparing isn’t per se bad. It’s a part of the evaluation process.
However, we all know how relationships end when you constantly compare your partner to others.
This strategic distance between individuals craftfully created by dating apps results in various “-ships”: Courtship, Situationship, Flirtationship, and now, Nanoship.
You go on dates with somebody in Courtship, evaluate them, but do not commit yourself.
You flirt with someone in a Flirtationship, but do not commit.
You emotionally and physically invest in someone in a Situationship, but do not commit.
And you don’t commit so as to continue comparing and talking to other people- something the apps really want you to do.
It’s often said that you should never trust the words, but the actions.
Just because the apps say that they want you to find love does not mean that they do.
Observe their actions to determine their motives.
Bumble has now implicitly legitimised situationships with their newly launched feature of “intimacy without commitment”. Further, their integrated BFF mode is designed to increase engagement and retention.
You can be friends, and intimate, but you do not have to commit.
And how would one describe that?
Yes, exactly- it’s a Situationship.
In the end, dating apps may promise connection, but their algorithms are designed to keep you swiping, chatting, and comparing—preventing the very commitment they claim to foster.
So, the next time you find yourself in a 'situationship,' ask yourself whether it’s because you met the wrong person, or used the wrong app.
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