At Sierra.
Discover joyous deals on great gifts for everyone on your list, like cozy slippers, ski gear, fishing poles bikes, large kayaks, even larger canoes which might lead to another discovery
Wrapping gifts is the only sport you need to stay fit this season.
Tis the season to discover great gifts at unexpectedly low prices.
Sierra, let's get moving.
Wayfarers.com.
Sale is returning.
Get ready for Way Day.
For four days only, score up to 80% off all things home with free shipping on everything.
From October 26th through 29th, score Wayfair's best deals, like up to 80 off area rugs, up to 60 off mattresses, up to 60 off bedroom furniture and more exclusive doorbuster deals.
So mark your calendar and shop Way Day starting October 26th at Wayfair.com.
Wayfair, every style, every home.
Welcome to Love Letters.
I'm Meredith Goldstein. me say a word for you, and you can think about how it makes you feel.
The word is situationship, which, according to dictionary.com, is a romantic or sexual relationship that is undefined and noncommittal.
Situationship.
When you hear that word, what do you think of?
A fun and sexy relationship where you never know what's going to happen?
Or do you think of something annoying and disrespectful?
Maybe you think of that dude in college who used to show up at your dorm room at 3 a.m. for company.
Or perhaps you think of the person you're seeing right now.
Actually, are you seeing them?
You don't even know anymore because it's a situationship.
Today's episode is about that word, what it means, and what it can mean.
Because people throw it around all over the place.
And I think sometimes it's used in the wrong way or with the wrong mindset.
We're going to get into a story today, but first I want to talk about the language we use and invent when we talk about romance and how these words develop.
Like, how old is the word situationship?
And to the first people who use that word are social media ancestors who said it.
What did it indicate?
To figure this out I must go straight to Amanda Montell, who has a linguistics degree and is known in the podcast world for shows like Sounds Like a Cult and Magical Overthinkers.
Amanda wrote a book called The Age of Magical Overthinking Notes on Modern Irrationality, which I devoured.
She also wrote a book called Word Slut, a feminist guide to taking back the English language.
I tell Amanda I'm thinking about the word situationship.
Where did it come from?
So I'll start by saying this.
Slang is tends to stick around and not just be sort of flash in the pan but really takes a seat at the table of everyday language when it fulfills a lexical gap.
So when a piece of slang can represent an idea that was before unnamed, that is a good sign that it's going to become a part of our everyday lexicon for the long haul.
And I think that situationship really does fall into that category.
I'm partial to it because it's this very clever portmanteau, a hybrid of relationship and situation.
So it really rolls off the tongue.
It's easy to understand at face value, but i also think it fills a need a succinct, catchy description for a type of relationship that reflects how we interact with each other romantically in the modern age.
I ask how old it is, because it feels old, like I was born knowing this word.
But when I checked the archives of the love letters advice column, people only started using it in their relationship questions in the last five years.
So slang provenances are infamously hard to track down, but according to the Google Ngram tool, which tracks the history of word usages in English, we really started to see the rise of situationship in the early 2010s.
It has enjoyed kind of a skyrocket since then.
And, according to a marriage and family therapist named Daniel Dashnaw, The rise of this term situationship really falls in context of the decline in more traditional or old school dating practices.
With the advent of online dating less sort of committal kind of face-to-face dating we saw the opportunity for romantic partners to slip in and out of one's life without that more traditional commitment structure.
And we suddenly needed a term to describe that new setup and also some of the emotional charge, and maybe frustrations, that might come with that.
There are also some kind of like pop culture and media ties that boosted situationships popularity, including songs like Taylor Swift's Delicate or SZA's song Supermodel.
I'll admit that I never thought about Taylor Swift's Delicate as a situationship song, but there is that lyric.
I ask Amanda, does the word situationship pretty much always indicate a bad relationship?
I do think that the term situationship has sort of a negative connotation, this sort of like, attached to it, because it can reflect a kind of power dynamic where one person, let's say a fuckboy type to use another piece of slang from the era that I'm referencing here, will you know suggest that there is hope of commitment in a dynamic and then there ends up not being that commitment.
And so the best way to label this dynamic Dating scenario is situationship.
I remember when the Facebook relationship status, it's complicated, was introduced.
A lot of people felt very seen by that.
But this noun situationship is obviously like a lot more catchy and succinct than just saying that you're in a a relationship that's complicated.
And I think that one's not to sound redundant, but relationship to a situation ship probably has everything to do with both parties or all parties if you're in a poly situation ship expressing their honest wants and expectations.
I definitely think that situation ship can be used to describe something fun and interesting.
I remember in the show Insecure Issa Rae described a situation ship style scenario as being her ho-tation, another portmanteau of ho and rotation.
Depending on the most popular contexts and usages of the term, it will acquire either negative or positive connotations among most speakers.
I definitely think it makes sense that situationship would have caught on and I think it might be here to stay, but whether it will turn into more of a positive or more of a negative remains to be seen.
But how does a positive situationship play out?
If so many people these days are stuck having more situationships than long-term relationships, does it have to be all bad?
That brings us to Nicole, who wrote into the podcast about her dating experiences.
After reading her story, I asked her to come on to teach us a lesson, because it seems she had learned one.
My name is Nicole, and I am 43 years old.
Nicole's going to go by a first name in this episode because, even though she wants to share this story,
She doesn't want it to be Google-able.
Like a lot of millennial women, Nicole grew up in the suburbs imagining her future, thinking she could do it all.
That's what she saw in her youth, the potential of being an adult woman.
She had a great example of what independence and agency looked like.
My mom was kind of an 80s badass businesswoman.
She had shoulder pads and she drove a fast car.
And I thought, OK, I'm going to have this big career.
For younger people who want to know what these shoulder pads look like, please watch the film Working Girl or the show Moonlighting.
Nicole wanted her own shoulder pads, metaphorically.
Nicole's mom didn't date much when Nicole was a kid.
She was doing mom stuff, living her life, focusing on her career.
But then she meets a guy.
She and her mom are in California, and the guy is in New York.
They travel to see each other.
They travel together.
They fall in love and make their partnership official.
Nicole, who loves her stepdad, watches all of this and thinks about her own future.
She realizes she could work, have her own life, grow up, and meet an amazing guy too.
Then I'm going to get married.
And I'm going to be married to my best friend.
And I'm going to have this awesome big wedding and a big poofy dress.
And then it'll just be all amazing and great.
Nicole goes to college in the Boston area.
She sticks around the area after school and begins working for a non-profit.
Around this time, she meets someone.
He was really nice, really good looking, had the job and everything was lining up exactly how it should be.
Our other friends at the time were all in relationships as well.
And I think at the time, I thought, this will be so fun.
We have community.
We have this group of other couples.
You know, we would have like certain weekends where we would have barbecues and things like that.
But I felt so stifled.
The serious relationship Nicole has always dreamed of wasn't enough.
She felt miserable.
And we were kind of setting up for this traditional life.
I was living in Boston at the time.
And we were just going to have this traditional life and move into the suburbs.
And it just was really suffocating.
She had done it. found her person, but she never thought the life she wanted would be so boring.
It felt like we were just seeing the same people and like all in relationships.
It didn't feel adventurous or new ever.
I think I was holding on to the idea that there's nothing wrong here and I want to be married.
So why don't we just make this work?
When acting like everything is okay doesn't work, they try therapy.
There was a lot of, you did this, you did that, and we weren't coming together.
And our therapist actually looked at us and said I don't usually advise one way or another, but I actually think you guys should break up.
And so we were very tearful, and we agreed in that meeting that we would break up.
The decision makes sense, but it's not easy.
Nicole remembers a moment where she realizes wait, I could have had everything I wanted on paper, at least with a good person.
And now it's all gone.
Like a month or two after we broke up I went to his house and he had a big flat screen TV and that was really expensive at the time because that was kind of like new technology.
And I was like, wow, you've got a really nice TV.
And he said, yeah, I used the money I was saving for your engagement ring for this TV.
And I'll never forget it.
It was so heartbreaking because we were so close.
The thing is, what Nicole needs in her 20s is time for herself, adventure and maybe some casual relationships.
The kind that looks super fun and great on television.
And yes, make for good Taylor Swift and SZA songs.
I moved to New York City pretty soon after that.
And I really just focused on doing things like playing dodgeball and having a huge group of friends and just working long hours.
At this point, Nicole has joined the tech startup world.
I would have... situationships at the time I would have like hookups.
I just focused on things that were fun and invigorating.
Like for example, I've had a crush on somebody from high school forever and it was unrequited.
And then we ended up kind of together for short periods of time.
He lived in Boston.
I lived in New York.
So when he would come into town, we would hang out and have fun.
But I was really just focused on that and myself and my career at the time.
I feel like this is your shoulder pad season.
Yes, absolutely.
Walking around New York, being in business.
Nicole is having fun.
As her 20s pass by, though, her original life goals come back around.
She is still thinking about marriage and she wants to be partnered.
She just doesn't want it to be boring.
In her late 20s, she winds up moving to California for grad school.
And as she enters her 30s with more of a goal of being partnered...
It's really hard.
But I still had that chip on my shoulder about what I thought relationships looked like.
And I didn't have a lot of models from my friends about healthy relationships.
They all just kind of looked like a drag.
And I was dating a lot at the time with the intention to have a boyfriend.
But I would go out with people.
It would last maybe a few dates or even three months.
And then they would say things to me like can't give you what you need.
You know you want to be in a relationship, you want to be married, you want to be very serious and i don't.
And then it would end and i couldn't figure out what i was doing wrong.
So i just did so much therapy.
I looked at every advice column.
I read a lot about it.
I, you know, went out to places where i thought i would find people and nothing was really working.
There are a bunch of experiences in her 30s that seem to lead nowhere.
It's not just happening for her like it did for her mom.
At one point, Nicole gets really excited about someone because a matchmaker sets it up.
That matchmaker had recruited her.
And it seems like the guy she's going out with is really invested in getting to know her, because he spent money to sign them up for a pizza making class.
It was the first date where we made pizza together.
And then afterwards, he told me that he wasn't interested.
And I just had a level two meltdown. about it and cried.
And I wasn't crying about this guy that I'd met one time.
I was crying because I put so much energy into dating and I've been on date after date and the rejections added up.
There was also a relationship with a friend of friends that seemed like it could be the answer, but then it wasn't.
I had become friends in my mid thirties with another couple and they had a really wonderful relationship.
And so it changed my perspective on how relationships could be like theirs was fun.
They travel together.
They're really attracted to each other and they really push each other to be better people.
I started dating their best friend and he and I had kind of this very tumultuous relationship where he has a big job.
And at this point I was pretty high up in my career as well.
And so both of us were traveling for work a lot.
And eventually he said you know, I can't this, i need to focus on my career and i don't know if i ever want to be in a relationship.
And it broke me and i just just really broke my spirit.
I cried so much and i ended up doing very intense therapy at that time to go back and see what i wanted to do.
The situationships that were fun in her 20s are grueling in her 30s and they seem like an overwhelming pattern to continue, especially as she approaches her 40s.
And that's when a therapist suggests Nicole do something entirely different to get a new take on all of this, a possible new way to deal with dating fatigue, the situationship that never docks.
What does this therapist tell her to do?
More when we return.
Holiday shopping often means acquiring more things you probably don't need.
But maybe this year, it could mean something different.
It could mean investing in yourself, in pleasure, in curiosity, in connection.
That's the idea behind Beducated, an online platform that treats sexual wellness like the lifelong skill it really is.
Their expert-led courses cover everything from pleasure positions, guided masturbation and ways to build deeper intimacy.
It's thoughtful, respectful education for a part of life some of us never really learned about.
And this Black Friday, Beducated is offering its biggest discount ever 65 off the yearly pass, which comes out to just 69 for the entire year, locked in for life.
Nice.
You can explore at your own pace, completely privately, and with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Learn more at beducate.me slash loveletters69 and use code LOVELETTER69 to save 65%.
That's beducate, B-D-U-C-A-T-E dot M-E slash loveletters69 and use loveletters69 to save 65%.
If you're like me, your skin needs a little extra love this time of year.
Between colder weather and the rush of the holidays, it's easy for your skin to feel dry, dull or stressed.
One Skin has a menu of solutions for people like me looking for all the right ingredients.
Consider the OS1 Face Topical Supplement.
It's a rich but lightweight moisturizer designed to improve skin's firmness.
It's made to make my skin look smoother and brighter, which feels like a small miracle this time of year.
At the core is their patented OS1 Peptide, the first ingredient proven to target senescent cells, the root cause of wrinkles, crepiness and loss of elasticity.
One Skin also just launched their limited edition holiday sets, including the Nightly Rewind gift set.
It's the ultimate upgrade to any nightly ritual.
For a limited time, try One Skin for 15% off using code LOVELETTERS at oneskin.co slash LOVELETTERS.
After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them.
Please support our show and tell them we sent you.
That's 15% off One Skin using code LOVELETTERS at oneskin.co slash LOVELETTERS.
The other day I stared at an aura frame in my living room watching photos change, remembering that, even though I am stressed and the world is weird, I actually did some fun stuff and have seen beautiful things with wonderful people this year.
What a gift.
This season, you can turn your memories into a gift for others.
With an aura frame, you can preload photos and videos before it ships.
So when your loved one opens the box, their favorite memories, big celebrations, silly selfies and everyday joys are already in there, ready to enjoy.
Setting it up is effortless, and you can share new photos and short videos anytime, from anywhere, so the frame always stays full of fresh memories.
Because you can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it.
For a limited time, visit AuraFrames.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code LOVELETTERS at checkout.
That's A-U-R-A-FRAMES dot com.
Promo code LOVELETTERS.
This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is the best of the year, so order now before it ends.
Support this show by mentioning us at checkout.
Terms and conditions apply.
Nicole is in her late 30s, living in California.
After a major false start in her mid-20s and almost a decade of situationships, she thought she'd be married by now.
She's tired and burnt out.
Her therapist recommendation?
Take 30 days off. from active dating.
I laugh at this because in my 30s, I took way more than 30 days off at a time.
But I do acknowledge that for many that's a significant pause, especially when you're actively looking for a relationship.
But Nicole doesn't.
And it feels so good, she keeps on going.
That 30 days turns into two years.
From the ages of 40 to 42, Nicole doesn't date at all.
I do want to say I find her timing fascinating because Nicole would have stopped dating right as the world was very into dating again.
Remember, 2021 was hot girl summer.
Everyone was coming out of lockdown ready to meet new people.
And Nicole was like, no, thank you.
I'm having me time.
During these years off she's doing major shoulder pad, woman stuff working studying, finding new interests, acting.
She legit takes comedy classes.
Everything she does is for herself, for her own joy.
And it's in this moment of truly loving the me time that she says okay, maybe I can start again from a better place.
So how did you start up again?
What was the opening the box again?
What did it look like?
Do you remember the day and what you were doing?
I don't remember the specific day, but I just remember feeling very scared.
I wasn't sure if I was going to bring back all of that heaviness from before and just go back into the same old patterns.
And so I did it very lightly.
I only went on the apps, you know, every couple of days.
When Nicole wrote into Love Letters to share her story, she said she was developing what she called a constellation of men dudes, who offer different things at different times.
Maybe something casual, maybe more.
It was kind of like what she had experienced in her 30s.
But what had changed since her time off was that she saw these people and these experiences through a new lens.
This time around.
A few cool dates that end there might feel like a learning moment instead of a waste of time.
This attitude is actually reminiscent of the way she viewed situationships in her 20s, when she was still learning.
I think before I felt like I was in a video game with a sword walking through the desert.
Like, are you my husband?
Are you my husband?
And now...
I feel like I can bring a much lighter approach to dating.
Can you give me some examples of who else you've met since diving back in?
So it's been really positive since diving back in eventually.
I actually reconnected back during COVID between relationships.
There was somebody I met and I thought that we would date, but then he ended up meeting somebody else and dating her.
And over the years, we'll sometimes get together.
And we have fun together and we have adventures together, but it kind of never really has enough ingredients to become a relationship.
And so I actually reconnected with him at the same time.
I also travel for work to the same place quite a bit.
And I met somebody there and I really thought like maybe we could have a real relationship long distance.
And the more we talked, the more I realized it wasn't really realistic.
Nicole was learning what she might want at this age.
This new long-distance man in her constellation is a single dad.
When Nicole was younger, she thought she might get married and have kids.
Then it didn't seem that desirable.
This guy gives her a new perspective.
So we ended up becoming more friends and being intense supporters of each other.
And it's been really healing.
He's really changed my perspective on having children.
And I've just learned a lot from him.
Wait, what was the big thing you learned about having children?
That it can be beautiful and fun.
I think a lot of the narratives we hear about having children is about what a schlep it is and the labor of having children.
He loves being a dad.
He's super engaged with them.
He brings them to all their sports and he takes a lot of care in how he raises them.
I haven't really seen a lot of men step up in the way that he does in terms of being an active participant in sports, in doing the day-to-day of being a parent.
And it made me realize, if you find the right partner, or at least for me then maybe it would be fun and not just a heavy burden.
These days Nicole dates people she knows she might not want to marry, if they're nice and if they're good company.
Because life is about having these cool experiences, right?
You learn about different lifestyles that you would have never learned about before.
Like one guy I went on some dates with, raced toy cars.
And, you know, it was just so random and so interesting to learn about that lifestyle.
And just one person that I dated was a DJ.
So learning about new music that I hadn't been exposed to, I just love learning.
And so I think I have a pretty rich life in dating and outside of dating.
None of this feels like time wasted.
At any given moment, Nicole says she might be in a series of very enjoyable short-term or casual relationships with great men.
And that's an interesting point, too.
I think, when something doesn't work out, an instinct might be to vilify everyone involved ourselves, the other person,
But, like, what if people are nice?
It isn't where Nicole expected to be in her 40s.
But it's not bad, either.
What I came to realize more recently is that I have dated really... high quality, wonderful men.
And maybe they last a few months and then it ends.
And then I feel like a failure because it didn't materialize into a relationship or marriage.
And a lot of times these men stay in my life because they're great men.
I realized, instead of feeling like a failure, can I be more present to what is and what I do have in my life?
And that is these many different men who maybe were not dating at this time.
Maybe at one time we dated, but they contributed to my growth.
And they were special people in my life.
The thing I get out of this is that situationships are bad when you're being treated poorly.
If situationships are ill-defined, fluid experiences that also involve fun and respect and learning, they can be good.
I think about Nicole saying a constellation of men with a smile on her face.
And I'm like, yeah, that's fantastic.
I think sometimes when you're in a relationship let's say you're dating a few months then you determine that you're a boyfriend, girlfriend.
Now you have a set of expectations about how somebody should treat you, how they should show up for you.
And you're looking at them through that lens, versus looking at them through the lens of who they are and how they're showing up and if that's working for you.
By not having these titles, I've had the time to explore who these men are.
I don't want to be too glass half full about anything here.
Not for Nicole, not for others who want a forever kind of love, but wind up with a series of situationships that feel frustrating and confusing and not quite enough.
I know it is the worst to be looking all the time and having to feel temporary about everything.
I also fully acknowledge that when I was in my 20s and 30s, and actually even as I turned 40, I was not looking to get married.
So easy for me to say that situationships can be rich life experiences.
I get it and trust me, I know that if Nicole met some amazing guy tomorrow who wanted to commit forever, she'd be into it and probably relieved.
But I do know this from her story and from the stories of others who tell us about situationships.
One, there's a difference between a situationship and being disrespected.
If you're being disrespected, just go.
Two in a respectful situationship.
It might be a little confusing or frustrating, but it is an experience, and maybe one that helps you get to the relationship you want.
Nicole skipped a lot of situationships in her early days of dating and then wound up very bored.
She needed the lack of permanence to know what she'd want more permanently.
Three, maybe the better shape you're in with yourself, the more you can enjoy situationships.
That's the most important thing I get out of Nicole's story.
She took those years off and wound up adoring. her own company.
Her break made her a person who can have the most fun while on a date with a DJ or a guy who likes toy cars.
Nicole, by the way, just moved to a new city and her confidence radiates.
She's ready for the situationships to come.
And therefore, others are happy for her too.
By being okay with it, my friends are okay with it.
My family is okay with it.
They've backed off of asking me questions like Why don't you date so-and-so?
Or trying to set me up with people that are obviously not matches.
I've come into myself.
And that's kind of the whole point of all of this is just to say, here's where I'm at.
And instead of saying it's not where I want to be, I'm happy with where I am.
I accept where I am.
And this is what my life looks like.
And it's great.
I have the ability to craft my life the way that I want.
Love Letters is a production of the Boston Globe.
Our producer is Christina Hanatu.
Our executive producer is Kristen Nelson.
Story, edit, mixing, and mastering by Jasmine Aguilera.
Sound design by Christina Hanatu.
Special thanks to Nancy Barnes and Linda Henry.
Remember, Love Letters is also an advice column.
Send any questions about dating divorce marriage situationships, whatever to loveletters at bostoncom.
What do you say to people who think of of a life without one monogamous marital connection as being unfinished or not yet started?
I would say that every day is your real life and every day of life is a gift.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Thanks for listening.
Here we have the Lemu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
Fascinating.
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
Uh, Lemu, is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
Cut the camera.
They see us.
Only pay for what you need at libertymutual.com.
Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.
Savings vary.
Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.
This holiday, discover meaningful gifts for everyone on your list at Kay.
Not sure where to start?
Our jewelry experts are here to help you find or create the perfect gift, in-store or online.
Book your appointment today and unwrap love this season, only at Kay.
I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight, And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke.
A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old.
And a centenarian rediscovers a love...
How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again?
