'Situationship' This, 'Talking Stage' That – Can We Just Grow Up And Call It Dating?

A pair of people on a dateIf I had any sway at all, TikToker @welcometothepeasantparty would be given a Nobel prize for her pioneering work in the “dating jargon-busting” space. “You can continue to ‘talk’ ’til date one – but once you get there, talking date done,” one line of her viral TikTok (which includes a comprehensive chart of when dating begins and ends) goes.Her video is a response to Gen Z’s encyclopaedic dating terminology, which turns dating into an impossibly complicated maze of newish terms and words (think “situationship,” “textlationship,” and the aforementioned “talking stage”). To be clear, I do not judge the youth: I was them. I indulged in dating jargon myself when I was single, sincerely believing that the people I was seeing for months without any hint of commitment were “situationships” and not just incompatible dates whom it was my duty to cut off.But with the launch of apparently-not-dating app Flure, which describes itself as “the first explorationship app,” my head has officially sunk into my hands.What is an “explorationship” when it’s at home?The company’s psychologist, Leah Levi, says this about “explorationships” – “Some connections turn into romance, others into deep friendships, and some remain a short-lived spark – and all of that is valid.“The point isn’t to chase a label. It’s to enjoy the connection for what it is, and let it become whatever it’s meant to be.”It reminds me a little of the time I went on a first date with a person who told me at the end, “I had a great time with you and I’d like to see you again, but just so you know, I am also staying open to meeting new people.” You mean dating?, I wish I could ask both of them. Like, the thing people do when they see where going on dates (!!) with people lead to?! Well, actually, I did ask that to Levi, who responded: “Gen Z is definitely quicker than past generations to name new patterns. But please, don’t mistake it for the obsession of categorising everything.“They just want to describe new experiences in ways that feel accurate to them. Giving something like an explorationship a name makes it valid, not just a confusing ‘grey area.’” Fair enough. Except that I found the opposite was true in my single days.Confusing dating terms can be an excuse for bad behaviourAs I’ve mentioned before, I’ve served my time in the trenches of online dating. That means I’ve been met with “breadcrumbers,” “ghosters,” and “love bombers” galore (I actually like those terms, because they help to put a fine point on annoyingly common behaviours).But terms like “situationship” did the opposite for me. They muddied the emotional water; I felt that because I believed myself to be in one (or two, or five), I had no right to expect the decency or consistency I wanted from a potential partner. What could I complain about? I asked myself. I am not in a relationship; I am a silly woman who has become the victim of a “situationship,” which feels like a state of being (like being single or married) rather than a made-up term for mismatched lovers.In fact, calling dating “dating” finally helped me to clarify my boundaries. Why should I deal with days of no texting from someone I was dating? Dating is a process by which you determine if someone is right for you: by behaving in a way I find upsetting, the person should have eliminated themselves from that process. Once I’d cleared that up (that going on dates with me meant we were dating, and that dating is nothing more or less than a process by which to measure compatibility), the actual process became far easier and less hurtful. Related...'Loud Looking' Might Actually Be A Dating Game Changer'She Asked Me If I Wanted To Go Half On A Baby': People Share Their WTF Dating MomentsI Asked Dating Experts What The Worst Texting Red Flag Is, And It's Not Ghosting

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