What is a situationship, and why is it different from both friendship and love?
A situationship, called "mối quan hệ mập mờ" in Vietnamese, is a relationship where two people care for each other like a couple but have no commitment and no clear status. It sits in the middle zone: more than friendship but less than love. The people involved often text every day, go on dates, and share intimate gestures, but when asked "what are we to each other," the answer is always dodged.
According to Le Dao Anh Khuong, a lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City, research on couple psychology identifies three factors that make a relationship last: intimacy (closeness like friends or confidants), passion (attraction and the desire to be near each other), and commitment (investing in a lasting couple relationship). In a situationship, the first two factors can be very strong, but the third is almost absent.
This explains why a situationship is not friendship. Friendship has no romantic passion and no implicit expectation of a shared future. A situationship is also not love, because love includes commitment, even when that commitment is expressed at different levels. A situationship is a state of hovering between those two zones, and that hovering is the source of most of the suffering that follows.
How do you recognize a situationship?
The clearest sign is that you cannot answer the question "what are we to each other" without feeling uneasy. Beyond that, there are recurring patterns that many young people have shared with the press.
- The two of you text every day and care for each other in small gestures, but you never appear together as a couple in front of friends or family.
- When one person wants to move forward, the other gives reasons like being busy with work, school, or self-development, then disappears for a while and comes back as if nothing happened.
- The other person may post things like "waiting for the right person to love" on social media, leaving you unsure where you stand in their heart.
- You feel you have the right to be jealous but not the standing to say so, so you have to suppress your emotions.
- The relationship is sometimes intensely passionate and sometimes distant and silent, but there is never a clear affirmation.
Ngoc Chau, a 20-year-old from Hoi An, who has been through several situationships, told Tuoi Tre newspaper that the constant feeling is insecurity and the fear of losing what you have, and in the end, when it finishes, you still do not know whether the other person truly liked you. This is a very typical description of a prolonged situationship.
Why do young people choose a situationship instead of a clear relationship?
There are many reasons, and they often overlap rather than exclude each other. The first is the need for freedom and avoiding ties. A 22-year-old in Quy Nhon told Tuoi Tre that a situationship is the most comfortable because you do not have to bind each other too much, do not intervene too deeply in each other's lives, and if you break up, it does not hurt as much as an official relationship.
The second reason is the pressure of balancing study, career, and love. A second-year student at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City shared with Thanh Nien that it is not yet the right time for a serious love affair, because they still have to focus on studying, working part-time, and developing themselves.
The third reason, and the more structural one, comes from the social media environment. According to psychologist Drisha Dey, cited in Tuoi Tre, social media allows young people to reach more people, which means more choices. This generation often chooses situationships to experience the feeling of free romance while continuing to look for a more suitable partner. In other words, a situationship is both a way to enjoy the present and an open-ended strategy for the future.
A dating platform once reported in 2022 that 49% of users added friendship as a purpose to their profile, and 1 in 10 single young people said they chose a situationship so the relationship would not carry too much pressure. As many as 73% of young people surveyed said they were not ready for a committed relationship.
Comparison table: friendship, situationship, and love
| Criterion | Friendship | Situationship | Love |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intimacy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Romantic passion | No | Yes | Yes |
| Commitment | No | No or very vague | Yes |
| Clear status | Yes (friends) | No | Yes (partners) |
| Shared future expectations | No | Ambiguous, different for each person | Yes |
| Sense of security | High | Low, fluctuating | High if commitment is maintained |
This table shows that a situationship is not a harmonious middle ground between friendship and love, but a state with a serious deficit in the commitment and status columns. That deficit creates most of the psychological problems.
Why do young people bring situationships to tarot readings?
Tarot cannot read the other person's intentions. What it actually does is reflect what you fear and what you hope for, through the meanings you assign to the cards. When a relationship has no status, the human brain finds ambiguity very hard to tolerate, so it looks for any system that seems to offer an answer: tarot, astrology, numerology, or even the habit of checking when the other person posts a message.
There are three psychological reasons why tarot becomes an appealing choice in this situation.
First, a situationship creates a specific, clear, frameable question: "Does this person like me?" Once the question is clear, finding an answer from outside becomes much more comfortable than facing the truth that the other person is avoiding.
Second, tarot allows the querent to keep hope without having to act. If the card says "yes," you can keep waiting. If the card says "no," you can tell yourself that tarot is not reliable. Both directions help delay a difficult decision.
Third, tarot creates a feeling of being heard without judgment. In a situationship, the person involved often does not dare tell friends for fear of being called foolish, and does not dare ask the other person directly for fear of losing the relationship altogether. Tarot becomes a safer in-between space.
The point to note is that these reasons do not turn tarot into a tool for diagnosing love. They only explain why people turn to it when they are confused. The cards themselves contain no information about the other person.
What psychological losses does a situationship cause?
According to Phan Thi Cam Giang, a lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology at Saigon International University, situationships lead young people to easily fall into unclear relationships with no responsibility toward the other person. This also makes them more emotionally numb, less able to feel real affection, and therefore less trusting of the good things in love.
There is also a less-discussed loss: a situationship erodes your ability to evaluate yourself. When you are constantly in a relationship where you do not know what you are in the other person's heart, the brain tends to conclude that the problem is you, that you are not good enough to be chosen. This is a logically false conclusion, but it is very hard to avoid emotionally.
Another loss is the awkward ending. When a situationship ends, the two people are no longer friends and cannot call each other exes. There is no breakup ritual, no clear reason, only a prolonged silence. This kind of ending without an ending makes psychological closure much harder than a normal breakup.
How to ask the other person directly instead of asking the cards
The first step is not to ask the other person, but to ask yourself. What do you want from this relationship? Are you ready to accept an answer of "no"? If the answer is no, then the problem is not with the other person, but with the fact that you are betting too much on an outcome you cannot control.
Once you have identified your needs, the conversation should start by talking about yourself first, rather than interrogating the other person. For example: "I feel uncomfortable with how unclear we are. I want to know what you think about us." This way of speaking reduces the chance that the other person becomes defensive, while still forcing them to answer.
The important thing is to accept that the answer may not be what you want. If the other person continues to dodge, that is already an answer. If the other person says they are not ready to commit, you have the right to decide whether you want to keep waiting. Anh Khuong advises that clarity is always necessary for both people to have a concrete plan for a shared or separate journey, and that young people should spend time talking about their emotional needs.
Cam Giang emphasizes self-questioning and challenging yourself. She says everyone has the need to love, to be cared for, and to belong to each other, and the problem is often that young people are too easy in how they feel and give. The best prevention is to define your life goals and values, and place love in the right position within them.
When should you stop?
There is a fairly clear sign that it is time to stop: when you realize you are spending more energy guessing the other person's intentions than living your own life. A situationship should only be a short getting-to-know-you phase, not a permanent state. If after a reasonable time there is still nothing clear, stopping is not a failure, but a decision to protect yourself.
A 20-year-old in Ho Chi Minh City told VietNamNet that friendship is friendship, love is love, if you pursue, you must pursue to the end, and if there is no hope, it is best to find someone else. Another 19-year-old in Hanoi said the problem is that young people fear being tied down and see commitment as a chain. Both views point in the same direction: clarity, even when painful, is better than prolonged ambiguity.
In short
A situationship is not a gentler form of love, but a state lacking commitment and status. It can be comfortable in the short term but often causes psychological loss in the long term. Tarot can help you temporarily feel heard, but it cannot replace a real conversation. The only way to know what the other person thinks is to ask them, and the only way not to get stuck is to know what you want before you ask.
