Your Situationship Is Turning You Into an Ass (The Buridan Kind)

My friend Amy* called me yesterday for some love advice. She wanted to know if she should leave Paul.*

Amy’s relationship with Paul started like most modern entanglements — vague, promising, and built on the ambiguous foundation of maybe. After a year of playing house without actually being in one, Amy wants to lock it down.

Paul? Well, Paul’s “not ready.” In those twelve months, Paul has checked every box of a committed boyfriend without committing.

They’ve traveled together, shared a Netflix account, and played nursemaid when one of them is sick. Their friend groups have become a single unit, and they even have inside jokes about who cheats more in pickleball. But despite all the cozy, couple-like behavior, Paul refuses to label what they have. No official “girlfriend” status. No Instagram posts. No introduction to his family.

Amy wants more. Paul wants more options.

The kids call Amy and Paul’s conundrum a “situationship” or “just talking” — the purgatory for the non-committal.

But let’s not throw stones at Amy and Paul from our fragile glass castles. Before I met my boyfriend, I endured an on-and-off again five-year situationship. Yes, that long. You would be surprised how time flies when you don’t own your time.

I am not alone. Situationships are the modern plague blackening hearts. Dating apps and social media have flooded us with choices — or, more accurately, the illusion of choice. We’ve got more potential connections at our fingertips than ever before, yet fewer meaningful ones.

Case in point, the average friend group has shrunk to the size of a fun-sized candy bar. According to a 2021 survey by The Survey Center for American Life, Americans reported having fewer close friends than ever, with 15% claiming zero confidants. Our social circles are shrinking, yet we are paralyzed by online romantic options, waiting for someone who checks every imaginary box.

Amy and Paul are locked in a no-win situation, but philosophers wouldn’t call their dilemma a situationship. They’d call them both asses. Buridan’s asses, to be exact.

Buridan’s Ass or how you starve in a situationship

“Buridan’s Ass” is a paradox by fourteenth-century philosopher Jean Buridan. In this paradox, a donkey stands halfway between two equally delicious hay bales. Unable to choose which one to eat, the donkey chooses neither and starves to death. The moral? If you can’t make a decision, you’re doomed to lose everything.

Amy and Paul are both asses (the Buridan kind). Amy could choose to settle for Paul’s emotional breadcrumbs and be happy. Or she could leave him and find someone ready to commit.

But she’s doing neither. Instead, she kicks the can down the street, hoping that Paul will suddenly wake up one day and catch the feels, when deep down, she knows he won’t. Of course, the alternative — leaving — means short-term pain, and that’s something Amy is not willing to face.

Paul, on the other hand, is an ass of a different kind. He could either choose Amy — fully, wholeheartedly — or let her go. But he does neither. Maybe he’s scared of commitment. Maybe he thinks there’s someone better out there. Maybe he just likes keeping his options open. It doesn’t matter what his reasons are.

What matters is that he’s too much of a coward to make a choice. He’s happy to reap all the benefits of the girlfriend experience without ever actually putting any skin in the game.

So here’s the cold, hard truth you won’t get in the latest rom-com: it doesn’t really matter whom you choose. What matters is the life you build with that person.

In other words, happiness in relationships isn’t about making the perfect choice; it’s about having the courage to choose someone.

Uncertainty and love never mix.

Researchers understand this flaw in our design. In Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things, Dan Ariely found that when people are stressed (and dating is definitely stressful), they are likelier to see patterns in black-and-white dots where there are no patterns.

Unfortunately, when someone doesn’t have the answer, we will gleefully invent a story to explain the unexplainable. Some of us will see demons where there are none. Others will see angels in hell. Sometimes, our connect-the-dots assumptions are correct. And sometimes, they are painfully wrong.

Yet, instead of defining a relationship, we will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to avoid having the “talk.” Situationships, by their nature, keep us in a suspended, anxious state.

Amy and Paul are definitely anxious. But the problem isn’t that they are stuck between two choices. The problem is they’re waiting for some mythical third option, one where all the emotional risk disappears. But there’s no third option. You either commit…or you don’t.

Two forks in a road

People often quote Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken as if it’s a clarion call for making the “right” choice. You know, the road less traveled — the one that makes all the difference. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, so that was not Frost’s takeaway. Frost wasn’t romanticizing the path he took. He was reflecting on the inevitability of choice itself. The two roads, in his words, “equally lay,” meaning there wasn’t a “right” or “wrong” one. Frost’s real wisdom was in accepting the choice he made and not looking back.

That’s the real kicker in relationships, too, isn’t it? It’s not about endlessly agonizing over whether this is the one or if you should hold out for someone taller, smarter, or with better taste in condiments. It’s about making a choice, sticking with it, and then finding joy in the life you build together.

Psychologists would call this mindset the difference between a maximizer and a satisficer. Maximizers are constantly hunting for the best option, always holding out for something better. They’re the ones swiping until their thumbs bleed because they’re sure the next profile will be a little hotter, or the bio will have fewer red flags. Block and burn until Mr./Mrs. Right comes along.

Satisficers, on the other hand, make a decision when something meets their needs and stick with it. They don’t agonize over whether they could have done better — they commit, and they’re happier for it.

Yet here we are — stuck in our unmet expectations. What’s the dirtiest, most disgusting word you can throw at a single person? Settle. Just settle. Settle and live a life of mediocracy. Do you know what is far worse than settling? Living in limbo.

Love isn’t a marshmallow test. Holding out for more doesn’t always lead to more candy.

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I really hope Amy (or Paul) makes the right choice. A year is enough time to decide. But if you have been in Amy or Paul’s predicament, don’t be a Buridan’s ass. Don’t starve because you can’t make a decision. Don’t let months turn into years and years turn into regret.

Trust me on this one. I would do anything to go back in time, ditch my situationship, and find my boyfriend sooner. That life lesson was a tough road to take.

But if Frost taught us anything, it’s that the road you pick doesn’t matter as much as your willingness to walk down it. Because here’s the real situation in Amy and Paul’s situationship — neither of them is making a choice. And by not choosing, they’re choosing to stay stuck.

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*Names changed, but feel free to insert your own.

Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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