WAYUT: The plight of the situationship
Yeah, I don't want to date you. But why don't you want to date me?
Dear Meg,
I would sincerely appreciate your advice. I was in a situationship with a guy for 3 years, and I know that sounds bad but hear me out. Neither of us wanted a relationship—I think we both lacked what we were looking for in a long-term partner. Nevertheless, we had amazing chemistry and the sex was BOMB. I decided to end things because I recently turned 30 and was like, Wow, I need to get my shit together and maybe, actually look for a long-term partner.
After I ended things, he managed to find and commit to someone in less than 2 months. So now, I find myself feeling really shitty, because why was he able to commit to her so quickly? I know I said neither of us wanted a relationship with each other, but now I’m questioning everything. Since I’ve started going on dates, I’ve realized how good of a connection we had and how much I actually liked him. You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone, I guess. But I was completely over him until I learned that he is now dating someone seriously.
So how do I take these rose-colored glasses off and get OVER this man? I ended things because he does not have his shit together career-wise, and he’s kind of a man-child. I’m honestly surprised he jumped into this new relationship, because I don’t know how and when he’s gonna figure his shit out. Nonetheless, I’m desperately missing the physical aspects of our relationship and I feel so, so single.
All I can think about is him with this new girl—showering her with his affection. Even though he doesn’t have his shit together, he’s very sweet and SUPER hot. Deadly combo. I don’t know if any of this made any sense, but I guess I just need some tips for getting over a breakup of sorts.
Sincerely,
Not-The-Ex
Dear Not-The-Ex,
There was a period of time in middle school when the popular girls decided I was funny enough to invite to their sleepovers. I was thrilled. I’d dance as their little court jester if it meant playing WiiSports and eating the good snacks their “super chill” parents kept in the cabinet. Then I went, and I hated it. The girls weren’t cruel or anything, but I didn’t feel like myself. They didn’t laugh at my jokes. I didn’t laugh at theirs. It wasn’t a fit.
The second time they invited me to a sleepover, I declined. And I spent the next three years thinking to myself, Man, I wish I was popular!
Believe me when I say I understand your hurt. As someone who has had her fair share of situationships, I understand the tidal wave of feelings that crashes through you in the aftermath. The regret, the anger, the shame at feeling these feelings at all, because you didn’t want him in the first place, so why the hell are you upset now? On a soul-level, I understand.
I’ll lead with this: Rejection of any kind hurts, even the rejection we impose on ourselves because we know we’ll be better for it in the long run. Let yourself feel that pain, even if the logical part of yourself chastises you for feeling that way. Cry, punch a pillow, rage over the fact that he chose someone else, and tell your logic to shut up. Logically, you know that you ended things with him for a reason (or several reasons), but who cares about logic? No one’s ever logic’d their way out of heartbreak. You just have to feel it.
You are not weak or wrong for feeling desire, regret, anger, resentment, or sadness about this relationship ending. It makes complete sense that you feel this way, and trying to “get over it” will only cause those feelings to lurk in the shadows, ready to pounce the moment you accidentally bump into him and his new girlfriend at the grocery store, or the flower shop, or that new restaurant you’ve been dying to try. Moving through your feelings is the only way to move past them—an unfortunately true platitude—and the process will probably take longer than you want it to.
When situationships are accessible to us, it can feel like staring at a Georges Seurat painting up close—you’re privy to all the stippled insecurities and brushstroke flaws that make up who they are and you think to yourself, What’s so great about this painting anyway? And then the situationship stops texting, or you see a hand on their Instagram story that looks a lot like the hand of that girl you saw in their story the other day, and as you get more distance from the painting you think to yourself, Okay wait a minute, that painting was kinda hot…and it did make me laugh sometimes. I should call that painting.
The difference between a Seurat painting and your situationship is that the Seurat painting is an actual masterpiece and your situationship is just some guy. He’s still the same guy. He’s just not in front of you anymore.
Which brings me to my second point—he’s still the same guy.
You mentioned in your note that you’ve known from the beginning he wouldn’t be a good long-term partner to you. Trust me when I tell you that your very valid reasons for not being with him—his aimless career path and, more importantly, his stunted adolescence—have not disappeared since he started dating this girl. She’s just willing to tolerate it. You weren’t.
There’s a song from the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which is criminally underrated, if you ask me) when the “crazy ex” gets her happy ending. She gets the guy she’s been obsessed with for seasons, and the two launch into a song about how all their problems are over. They sing along to a quirky tune:
Do you remember back when we had problems? / Oh man, that was annoying! / But now our love has magically solved them / And there won’t be any more in our future at all.
Maybe your ex-situationship did turn into some swashbuckling, Aragorn type who’s so obsessed with this girl that it transformed all that juicy potential you saw in him. Maybe after their first date he walked through the doors of the tallest building on Wall Street and said “Mr. Google? Yeah, I’m your new CEO.” Maybe he has an even bigger penis now.
The more likely reality? He’s the same guy. He just has a girlfriend now. If they really are a match, she’ll spend years teaching him how to become the partner that you didn’t want to spend years teaching him to be. If she wants to do that, more power to her. I say you deserve someone who’s fully cooked.
I’ve had the pleasure of running into a handful of past situationships years after things have ended between us. I’ve gotten coffee with them, asked them about their girlfriends, laughed at their only-okay jokes, and couldn’t help but marvel at how exactly and utterly the same they were. They were still charming, they were still hot, they were still the same dunderheads I wasn’t interested in dating five years ago, and don’t want to date now.
I have no cure-all for getting over someone. Once, I saw a former situationship at a bar and spent fifteen minutes staring at him through a window, my breath fogging up the glass like I was a fat cat in a cartoon staring at a pie. In my experience, that pain will ebb and flow but never fade completely, like when you sprain your ankle after the age of 25. The ankle will always twinge when it rains, but the pain becomes manageable to the point where you don’t really notice it anymore.
Let yourself feel angry that you didn’t want the easy thing. Let yourself resent your own desire for personal growth. (One of my favorite pastimes.) It’s so exhausting constantly trying to learn and derive meaning from our stupid little lives instead of just fucking the hot dumb guy ad infinitum and shutting our brains off for a while. I mean it. If another hot dumb guy comes along who you want to have a casual relationship with, I’ll be cheering you on from right over here.
But it sounds like there’s a part of you that isn’t interested in that type of connection anymore. It sounds like there’s a part of you that yearns for something more. I would be remiss to not encourage you to spend time leaning into that part of yourself.
You know you don’t want to date this guy, otherwise you would have dated him. There are good things about him—he’s hot, he’s charming, the sex is good. But those qualities are not the pillars uplifting a true partnership. Let yourself rage against the pain of not being chosen. Not having regular sex, not feeling that physical affection, not getting that emotional validation you’ve had for the past three years is a loss, no matter how casual the relationship is. Lean into that hurt, let it fill your body, consume your soul, breathe it out like fire. Feel it. Then remind yourself of the partnership you want. And have sex with some dumb hotties in the meantime to take the edge off.
Talk soon,
Meg