The Situationship
When You Fall for Your Booty Call
- situationship
/ˌsiCHəˈwāSHənSHip/
noun
a romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established.
Years ago, when I started using online dating apps, waiting to get through pregnancy, get through sleepless nights as a single mom with two under two, my guy friend in Venice, California suggested the only way to get past hook-up culture and gently land in a relationship would be to start with casual sex and hope the suitor develops feelings.
At first, I thought this was compromising my standards while putting me at risk for another pregnancy or STD.
Five years later, I found a name for it, "situationship", when I started dating Him.
The first date was set for a Thursday afternoon, early summer, when I didn't have my kids. I had to force myself to go.
The relationship with the father of my children was the longest of my life, but arduous, isolating and debilitating: in a word, miserable.
I am most content in bed with a smart TV, playing chess online or hiding from other people at the dog park.
If I wanted to resocialize myself after COVID and single parenthood, I had to go on dates. With reluctance, I resurrected my Tinder.
From a distance, I first saw Him slouched in front of a public telescope. The image of Him was realized like a memory: a memory in real time. I recognized His posture upon first sight.
We walked around the bay and hit a bar somewhere between bougee and dive. The conversation was surprisingly open: His birth, the separation of His parents, His journey.
I was talking fast.
I must've liked Him.
Another date. Another great conversation.
I kissed Him on the cheek and squealed as I drove away.
Then my life hit a massive pothole. I was forced to move out of my apartment and I was broke. This led to my first monologue of the shitshow that is my life. I drank too much tequila and made love to Him.
As our mouths crashed into each other like waves on boulders, he stopped to ask for consent. It was adorable.
"Oh yeah," I said, "I love you."
We both froze.
"Uhhhh, I didn't mean that." He kissed me again and I told him he tasted like innocence.
He tastes like cold, autumn nights and bike rides. I felt 15 again, making out on a blanket in the middle of the night next to the gravel pit by my house.
We fluid bonded (look it up) after a relaxed and responsible chat about our sexual history- and when he said it was a work night, I got dressed and said goodnight without feeling hurt or insecure. I got up and left for my apartment, which wouldn't be my apartment for much longer.
In my twenties, this would be where we move in together.
Now in our 40s, we kept flirting but didn't see each other often. Once every week or two… or three.
I sorted out my problems privately.
Then, I broke my arm while camping with my kids. My sister flew out to drive me, the kids and the dogs back from Big Sur.
I reconnected with Him. Netflix. IPA. Gummies. Sex.
His house was full of instruments and recording equipment, there was little room for a kitchen table or a sitting chair. There was no common space, everything was there to serve the music. A TV sat on the floor waiting to be tripped over in the shadows of other furniture. Cords were taped to the floor, running from one room to another. He was recording an album with his non-lyrical rock band.
This is where my mother smacks her lips in disapproval. "Mother, he is a scientist. It isn't his day job."
She trailed off with a serious of sounds- hm, groan, eh- as she gently weighed what this meant to her set of values before moving onto something less interesting.
The kids and I were invited to stay at His house a few times while He was out of town for work. I cleaned up after ourselves and put everything back right where it was, except for one thing.
I would move the phone charger or leave a razor, just to see how He would react. First, panicked texts. Then, quietly raking my items to one small pile on his kitchen counter.
He grew distant one day after a long bike ride. I could smell the incoming rejection, as I often do. When I gently prodded him for communication, He broke it off.
He couldn't continue seeing me without offering for me and the girls to move in. And He just wasn't ready for that yet.
I told him I, of course, expected this and appreciate not being ghosted.
Later, we hooked up for His birthday and our heads submerged in black bubbles of dizzy ecstasy with a kiss or afternoon orgasm.
We texted throughout the week: vented, shared pictures, songs. I did most of the communicating. He warmly responded with complete sentences.
He claimed/claims he can't give me what I want. I told him I don't have expectations, I don't think. I still try to run through what I want from him- even now. I honestly don't know.
A full blown romance is such a dated concept for me now. All us divorcees and broken-hearted people are so eager to fall in love and so easy to walk away from any snag in the fabric.
On my end, it is their tempers that scare me away.
A student's mother once said, "You do all this work on yourself and then you end up having to date people who haven't done any work on themselves. It is just better being alone."
And it is better to be alone than groped and guilted, which is the average dating experience at 45.
Last weekend, an old man sat next to me at a bar and said he needed a taxi. I suggested a Lyft. He suggested I arrange it for him.
"Well then it would be linked to my credit card and I would have to pay … so no," I said.
"I wrote a song," he said. "Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
'Cause if my eyes don't deceive me
There's something going wrong around here."
"That sounds familiar," I said.
"I wrote that!" he said proudly.
"That's a song. Not his," a longshoreman said.
"Oh yeah," I said googling in real time. "Joe Jackson wrote that. 1979."
"I also wrote this," he said closing his eyes in deep meditation. "Let me take you home tonight,
Mamma now it's alright
Let me take you home tonight
I'll show you sweet delight."
"Now that I know is Boston," I laughed.
"Most women thank me for my song lyrics."
"So I am ungrateful, is that it? You are going to teach me how to be thankful?" I asked.
He looked a little bewildered and slipped out while I turned away from him.
The bartender apologized.
"I'm used to it," I said.
And it is with confidence, I can say most men are less satisfying than my highly evolved sex toys.
When I went out with another woman for a girls' night, it satisfied all other desires I had for conversation, connection and spontaneous fun.
I thought, I could live out the remainder of my life with a vibrator, a friend and the occasionally good, period sex scene.
When we were young adults, we used to pile into each other's living spaces: sleep, eat, laugh, kiss, groom, wrestle, prank, tease, play records, space out. I remember eating ramen out of a pot with two guy friends, all three of us with forks, just before seeing "Lion King" in theaters. We were too young for expectations and those remain the best love affairs of my life.
Now, it takes about a year or three to find someone who will make me melt from the waist down. Hanging around to be His weekly hook-up is fine with me. I am not sure what else I have time for. Dinner sounds nice but he hasn't eaten in front of me yet. He has, however, cooked for me on more than one occasion.
With Him, whenever we hit a snag in our situationship, we text these grown up, honest and respectful conversations. And in my sorted history of dating much older men and much younger men, I have never enjoyed this level of respect from a man before.
It isn't just respect, it is self awareness, patience, openess.
He still encourages me to date other people because he can't give me what I want. He insists he can not handle dating and deleted his Tinder.
So there were a couple weeks where I just spent time with my kids, or got stoned and binged Larry David.
All of it is good for me: the going out, the kids, the camping, the isolation, and the time away from Him.
Yesterday, when a student brought a loaded gun to the school where I work, I felt immediately exhausted. My body was heavy as I drove home and my dogs surrounded me on my motel bed with coarse fur and hot breath. (I am still transient.)
My phone wasn't ringing off the hook with concern. My mother blamed the student's parents. The father of my children changed the subject almost immediately. And it was only then I cried.
Shots weren't fired but what if I was taken down on my way to the staff restroom. Would my family appear as drearily bored with the topic?
I texted Him. I just wanted to yell at Him. I wanted to tell Him He was like everyone else in my life, and I was done.
He texted me back with warmth, and love:
"I feel bad that you feel bad. Wish I could give you a hug. I go through periods where I feel pretty worthless and like I'm just not a good person. It can be hard for me to shake. But you do matter to me, whether you believe it or not."
He wasn't like everyone else.
I went to bed aching to taste Him again.
This morning, I told Him His thoughtful text messages "drive me wild with desire".
He responded enthusiastically but reiterated he can't give me what I want, just sex.
What if I wanted a man to give me his house when I needed it? What if I wanted a sophisticated grown up to tell me I mattered after an almost crisis?
What if he is giving me everything I wanted?
There is a Facebook group called "Are We Dating the Same Guy" and there is a group for each cluster of cities. The group is meant to alert women to toxic or abusive men and expose cheaters.
A member posted a question, "Has a situationship ever grown Into a relationship?"
The feed filled up with positive stories and wedding pictures. I certainly don't intend to ever marry again, but I was surprised at all the wonderful stories.
As I take my thoughts and desires, and gently roll them from one hand to another, I wonder if I am falling in love. This will be our fourth month of not what I want. It is the longest "relationship" I've had since I left the father of my children.
He is always in the back of my mind. My whole body resists talking to other men, but I do it because I don't want to hurt when this ends.
If this ends.
In the meantime, I will send the topless selfies, forward my mail there (oh yes, I do) and get to know him more. And more. Until this situation ship sails.
