That description is useful, but incomplete.
The more interesting question is not simply why people enter situationships. It is what ambiguity does to the relationship once attachment begins to form.
Recent research is starting to offer a clearer answer.
Situationships Are Common Enough to Be Studied Seriously
The term may be informal, but the experience is clearly widespread.
According to Left Unsaid’s review of current situationship statistics and research, 39% of U.S. adults in a 2024 YouGov survey said they had experienced a situationship.
Among adults aged 18 to 34, the figure rose to 50%.
That does not mean half of young adults are currently in undefined relationships. The survey measured whether respondents had ever experienced one.
Still, the result matters because it confirms that the situationship is not simply a niche dating phenomenon.
It is a relationship form many people now recognise from personal experience.
The Central Feature Is Ambiguity
A situationship is not simply a relationship without a title.
Two people can choose not to use conventional labels and still have a stable, mutually understood arrangement.
The more important issue is whether the relationship contains uncertainty about:
- commitment;
- exclusivity;
- emotional expectations;
- future direction;
- the meaning of intimacy;
- what each person is allowed to expect from the other.
This is why the difference between a situationship and a defined relationship is often structural rather than linguistic.
The problem is not that nobody has chosen the correct word.
The problem is that the two people may not share the same model of what the relationship is.
Research on Trust Is Particularly Revealing
A 2026 study examined 261 emerging adults who reported on 468 romantic relationship experiences.
Approximately 34% of those relationship experiences were classified as situationships.
The researchers found that situationship status predicted lower trust in the partner and lower perceived partner trust across several communication contexts.
This finding is important because trust is not simply about whether someone is lying.
Trust also involves predictability.
Can I rely on this person?
Do I understand what they want?
Do I know what our boundaries are?
Can I interpret their behaviour without constantly wondering whether the relationship itself has changed?
In that sense, ambiguity can become a structural source of uncertainty even when neither person is intentionally deceptive.
A relationship can contain high levels of contact and intimacy while still offering very little certainty.
Communication Does Not Automatically Create Clarity
One of the most common assumptions in modern dating is that frequent communication must indicate relational progress.
It does not necessarily.
Two people can message continuously, spend large amounts of time together, share personal details, and still avoid the conversation that would clarify what the relationship means.
That creates an unusual dynamic.
There is plenty of contact, but relatively little certainty.
And when certainty is missing, people often start using small behavioural signals as substitutes.
Response times become meaningful.
Tone becomes meaningful.
Social-media behaviour becomes meaningful.
Changes in routine become meaningful.
This interpretive pressure is one reason the emotional experience described in why situationships feel so intense can become disproportionate to the formal status of the relationship.
Ambiguity Can Increase Attention
Uncertainty has a way of making relationships cognitively demanding.
When the outcome is unclear, the mind tends to keep returning to the unresolved question.
Where is this going?
Do they feel the same way?
Are we becoming more serious?
Are they pulling away?
Should I ask?
Should I wait?
That repeated monitoring can make the relationship feel unusually important.
Not necessarily because the bond is deeper than every conventional relationship, but because ambiguity keeps demanding interpretation.
The Emotional Impact Is Becoming More Visible in Research
Qualitative research has also begun examining how young adults experience situationships psychologically.
Recent findings have highlighted themes including:
- unclear boundaries;
- unequal emotional investment;
- commitment avoidance;
- fear of replacement;
- emotional distress;
- difficulty knowing whether the relationship is progressing.
These findings fit a common pattern.
The person who wants less definition may experience ambiguity as freedom.
The person who wants more certainty may experience exactly the same arrangement as waiting.
That mismatch is often more important than the label itself.
Why Undefined Endings Can Be Difficult to Process
Situationships can also create an unusual form of grief.
When a conventional relationship ends, the ending is painful but usually recognisable.
There was a relationship.
Then there was a breakup.
An undefined relationship may end through fading contact, avoidance, ghosting, or an acknowledgement that neither person was ever officially committed.
This can make the loss harder to validate.
People may tell themselves they have no right to be deeply affected because “we were never actually together.”
But emotional attachment does not depend on official status.
This is one reason situationships can be surprisingly difficult to get over.
The person may be grieving both the relationship that existed and the relationship they believed might eventually exist.
Statistics Help Most When They Are Used Carefully
Situationship research is still developing.
That means figures should be interpreted with restraint.
A nationally representative survey, a study of emerging adults, and a small qualitative interview study are not interchangeable forms of evidence.
They answer different questions.
The useful lesson is not that one percentage explains modern dating.
It is that several lines of evidence point toward the same broader pattern:
undefined relationships are common enough to study, and ambiguity appears to matter psychologically.
For the full evidence summary, including prevalence, age differences, how situationships begin, trust findings, and research limitations, see Left Unsaid’s Situationship Statistics research page.
For the wider topic — definitions, mixed signals, commitment, endings, and recovery — the Situationships Guide provides the complete cluster.
The More Useful Question
Research can help explain why a situationship feels confusing.
It cannot decide whether the relationship is acceptable to the people inside it.
That question is simpler.
Do both people understand what this is?
Do both people want approximately the same thing?
Can both people ask for clarity without fearing that the relationship will disappear?
If the answer is yes, an unconventional relationship may still be workable.
If the answer is no, the ambiguity is no longer just a description.
It has become part of the problem.