anatomy of a situationship

by Annette Yan

anatomy of a situationship

• Skeletons

• Muscles

• Nervous system

• The body parts we’re obsessed with in literature

• Thriving in ambiguity

• there’s a specific certain lighting in the room under the covers in that middle land that you can only experience see when you’re sleeping w someone else. that glowing midtone, like the colour behind your eyelids (of the blankets)

• enveloped in warmth, quiet, warm, tender, full, before your body realizes its aches or your mind begins to race. In those moments it’s all feeling.

Let’s aim for the heart. But no — a situationship often begins as a mind game, a body game. Thus, [there exists/there is] an anatomy.

head

If we get cerebral, if we start with the origin of the game: It begins (how does it begin?) in almost any way, a chance encounter, a digital matchmaker, an orchestrated affair. Two people tumble into each others lives, and find themselves entangled. It’s never easy to document (or it is, but without labels and markings time collapses in on itself, makes itself clearest to those trapped in its circles). Steps are skipped, omitted, jumbled, time is never linear. It’s like (meeting up at weird hours), or trying to recall the position you woke up in for weeks, until you realize you’ve never considered how you even got to the stage of waking up together in the mornings.

hand

It’s fingers threading through hair. It’s a hand brushing your back. Reaching out, kneading, teasing, holding, it’s tender, not always timid, always some things unspoken. A hand brushes through your hair. Muscles flex, tendons wound tight will snap, ropes splitting open if something breaks.

foot

Ever heard of the saying put your foot down?

Let’s aim for the heart. But no – a situationship often begins as a mind game, a body game. Thus, there is an anatomy to it.

If we get cerebral, we may trace the origins. The situation is arbitrary: a chance encounter, a digital matchmaker, an orchestrated affair. Two people tumble into each other’s lives, finding themselves entangled. You think, where will this take me? How will this person fit in my life? And keep it surface. After all, this shouldn’t require much investment. Steps are skipped, tangled, twirled in dance, time collapses in on itself, making itself clearest to those trapped in its throes. It’s flippant, as the mind always is.

The situation is flippant, disregards conventions both social and temporal. You meet at strange hours, in between commitments, until the meeting up becomes its own commitment. You try to recall the position you woke up in for weeks until you realize you’ve never considered how you’ve even gotten there, waking up with someone who was just casual.

The relationship is undefined, only by nature of the situation. This is a situationship.