The short answer
If she’s all in one week and a ghost the next, and neither of you has said out loud what this is, then yes babe, you’re probably in a lesbian situationship. That’s not automatically a disaster. Some situationships are fine. The hot and cold bit, though, is the part worth paying attention to, and there is a way out of the fog. It involves one slightly terrifying conversation. We’ve written it for you.
What is a situationship?
A situationship is a romantic or sexual connection that nobody has defined. You’re more than friends, you’re not girlfriends, and the word “we” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary calls it a romantic relationship in which the couple are not official partners, which is a polite way of saying “it’s complicated” with better PR.
Dr Susan Albers, a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic, says the real hallmark is a lack of clear boundaries or labels: there are elements of friendship and romance, but nobody has defined the thing. You get many of the benefits of a relationship without anyone committing to one.
The sapphic version has its own flavour. We already blur the line between mates and dates (we wrote a whole piece on is it a date or just friends), we move fast when it’s good, and we’re very good at talking about everything except the one thing that matters. Which is how the infamous nine-month situationship happens. You know the one. Everyone on sapphic TikTok has either survived it or is currently in it.
Why has she gone hot and cold?
First, the kind bit: a hot and cold girl is not a puzzle you’ve failed to solve. The inconsistency is the information.
There are a few reasons it happens. Sometimes she doesn’t know what she wants and is working it out on you. Sometimes she likes the closeness right up until it starts to feel like commitment, then backs off. Dr Albers notes that situationships are often connected to an avoidant attachment style, where someone is reluctant to get close and can feel smothered in a committed relationship. None of that is about you being too much.
And sometimes it’s breadcrumbing: keeping you warm with just enough attention to stop you leaving, with no real intention of taking things anywhere. Researchers Rusi Jaspal and Barbara Lopes, in a 2025 study of 544 UK adults published in Psychology International, describe it as sending non-committal signals and periodically feigning interest, despite no serious plan to move the relationship forward. The occasional “miss you x”, the plan to meet that never materialises, the random Instagram like after three weeks of silence. That’s the trail of crumbs.
It’s common, and it’s not a straight-people problem. Half of the people in that UK study said they’d been breadcrumbed, nearly half the sample wasn’t heterosexual, and there was no difference in how often it happened by sexual orientation. Younger adults reported it most.
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It also hurts more than it looks. An earlier study by Raúl Navarro and colleagues, published in 2020, surveyed 626 adults aged 18 to 40 and found that being breadcrumbed was linked to lower life satisfaction and more loneliness and helplessness. Ghosting, interestingly, wasn’t. The slow drip is worse than the clean break, because you never get to grieve something that technically hasn’t ended.
Dr Albers has a line for why the grey zone is so exhausting: our brains really like clarity, so the ambiguity can be hard to process and may even create anxiety. If you’ve been lying awake decoding her reply times, that’s why.
What are the signs you’re in a situationship?
Be honest, nobody’s watching.
- Nobody has said the words “girlfriend”, “dating” or “exclusive”, and you’ve both carefully avoided the moment where someone might
- She’s intense for a few days, then quiet for a week, then back like nothing happened
- Most of the contact is texting. Actual plans are rare, vague or made by you
- You haven’t met her friends, or you’ve met them and been introduced as “my mate”
- You talk about tonight, never about next month
- You’ve been doing this for months and nothing has moved forward or ended
- You feel great after seeing her and slightly sick the rest of the time
- Your group chat has a name for her and it isn’t her name
Those last two are the tell. Dr Albers’ list of situationship hallmarks includes irregular or superficial contact, lives that aren’t integrated, and a relationship that neither grows nor ends. If you ticked four or more, this is a situationship. If you ticked all eight, we love you and we’re worried about you.
One caveat. Dating slowly, or keeping things casual for a bit, is not a situationship. The difference is whether it’s been said. Casual with consent is a choice. Casual by default, because one of you is scared to ask, is a situationship.
Your next read: Is it a date or just friends? The lesbian dating dilemma, solved.
Is a situationship always a bad thing?
No. And this is where you have to be straight with yourself before you’re straight with her.
Some situationships are exactly what both people want: you’re newly single, you’ve just moved cities, you’re not ready for someone’s toothbrush in your bathroom. Dr Albers is clear that a situationship isn’t inherently good or bad; it comes down to the people involved and how they communicate. The only rule is that it has to be honest, out loud, on both sides.
So before you do anything, answer these three questions. Write them down if it helps.
- What do I actually want from her? Not what you’d settle for. What you want. A girlfriend, something casual and steady, or just to stop feeling like this?
- Would I be fine if this stayed exactly as it is for the next six months? If your stomach dropped reading that, you have your answer.
- Am I staying because it’s good, or because I’m scared that asking will end it?
If you want casual and she wants casual, brilliant. Say so, agree what that looks like, and enjoy it. If you want more, the hot and cold thing is costing you, and it’s time to ask. Not to issue an ultimatum. To ask.
How do you ask “what are we?” without dying inside
You’re not going to send it at 1am. You’re not going to send it after she’s gone quiet for five days, as a test. And you’re not going to send it as a paragraph with four sub-clauses and a joke to soften it. Short, warm, in daylight, in person if you can. Dr Albers puts it plainly: if your conversations stay on the surface because you’re afraid to say what you really want, that’s a red flag. So say it.
The rules
- Say what you want, not what she’s done wrong. “I’d like us to actually be dating” lands. “You’ve been weird for weeks” starts a row.
- Ask one clear question and then stop talking. Let her answer.
- Pick a good moment. A walk, a coffee, the morning after a nice night. Not mid-argument, not when she’s just resurfaced.
- Decide beforehand what you’ll do with each answer, so you’re not negotiating in real time.
The script, in person
“I’ve really liked the last few months and I want to be honest with you. I’m starting to want more than this, and I’d rather know where you’re at than keep guessing. Where’s your head?”
The script, by text, if in person isn’t realistic
“Hey. I’ve been enjoying this a lot and I’d rather be upfront than overthink it. I’m at the point where I want something more defined. No pressure to answer right now, but I’d like to know what you want too x”
If you want to keep it casual, but honest
“Just checking we’re on the same page. I’m happy keeping this casual for now and I’m not looking for anything exclusive. Is that where you are as well?”
That last one matters. “What are we?” isn’t only for people who want a girlfriend. It’s for anyone who’d like the hot and cold to stop.
What if she goes cold when you bring it up?
Then you’ve got your answer, and it’s a kinder one than another four months of guessing.
A few things can happen after you ask. She might say she wants the same thing, in which case go and have a lovely time. She might say she’s not there yet but she’s into you, and you get to decide whether “not yet” is something you can live with and for how long. Or she might go quiet, get vague, or disappear. That one stings. It’s also the hot and cold pattern doing exactly what it does when feelings come up, and it tells you she’s not able to give you what you asked for right now.
Whatever she says, it’s hers to say. You don’t get to argue her into wanting more, and you shouldn’t try. No follow-up texts to reframe the question, no going quiet yourself to see if she notices, no checking her Instagram to work out what she’s doing instead. Those games are exhausting and they don’t work.
If the answer is no, or a non-answer, step back for real: fewer texts, no late-night replies, and a bit of space to let your nervous system settle. Dr Albers suggests looking at a situationship as a learning experience rather than a mistake or failure. The Jaspal and Lopes study found that people with lower social support were more exposed to breadcrumbing, so this is the moment to lean on your people. Tell the group chat the real version. Let them take you out. That’s what chosen family is for.
And if you notice this keeps happening, that every situationship you’re in runs hot and cold and you keep staying anyway, that’s worth exploring with a therapist. Not because something’s wrong with you, but because the pattern is probably telling you something useful.
What are the red flags in a situationship?
Not every situationship is a problem. These are the signs that this one is costing you more than it’s giving you.
- Only texting late at night. If she’s warm after 11pm and silent by day, you’re the plan when the other plans fall through. Dr Albers names feeling undervalued, and only hearing from someone when they’ve nothing better to do, as a red flag.
- Never making plans. Months in and she’s never once suggested a date, a day, a thing. You’re always the one organising, and she’s always “maybe”.
- Going cold when feelings come up. The second you say anything real, she vanishes for a week. Then she’s back, breezy, as if nothing happened. That’s the breadcrumb cycle, and it rewards you for keeping quiet.
- You’re a secret. No friends, no photos, no being seen together. Dr Albers lists dishonesty and secrecy among the warning signs that a situationship is turning unhealthy.
- You’ve stopped saying what you want. If you’ve made yourself smaller to keep her around, the situationship has changed you, and not for the better.
When it stops being a dating problem
Hot and cold is painful. It’s not the same as being controlled, frightened or made to feel like you’re losing your grip on what’s real. If she uses the silences to punish you, monitors where you are or who you’re with, pressures you into sex or intimacy you don’t want, or makes you doubt your own memory of what she said, that isn’t a situationship. That’s something you deserve support with.
Galop runs the LGBT+ domestic abuse helpline and will take you seriously. If it’s affecting how you feel day to day, Mind has support and your GP can refer you for help. Samaritans are on 116 123, free, any time.
So what should you actually do this week?
Work out what you want. Pick your moment. Ask the question once, clearly, and then let her answer be the answer. Whatever happens, you’ll be out of the fog by Sunday, and that’s worth more than another month of “hey stranger”.
Go on. Ask her. Then report back.
Nonchalant x
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Babs heads up Logistics and Product here at Nonchalant Magazine.
