Situationship vs Talking Stage: How to Tell the Difference
Members of the public write to the Bureau about situationship vs talking stage more often than about any other matter: whether a thing is still an early assessment period or has quietly become a standing arrangement. The two look similar from the inside, which is the difficulty. They are distinguished by direction rather than by feeling, and the test takes about a minute.
What is the talking stage?
The talking stage is an assessment period. Two parties are in regular contact and meeting occasionally in order to establish whether the matter should proceed. Nothing has been agreed because nothing is yet ready to be agreed, and both parties understand this. The defining feature is not the absence of a label. It is that the absence is understood to be temporary, and that both parties expect it to end: in an agreement, in an explicitly casual arrangement, or in nothing further.
The Bureau recognises a talking stage by its markers. Plans are made a few days ahead rather than a few weeks. Basic factual discovery is still under way. Each party still describes the other to friends in provisional terms. Either party may be in contact with other people without that constituting a breach, because no terms exist to breach. Duration is commonly two (2) to twelve (12) weeks. It runs shorter where the parties see each other weekly, and longer where they live in different cities or where one has recently left a long arrangement.
What is a situationship?
A situationship has the routine of a relationship and none of the agreement. There is a regular night. There is a preferred side of the bed. Their friends know your name and have stopped asking how it is going. What there is not is a set of terms, and, this being the operative part, no process by which terms would ever be reached. The matter is not undecided. It has settled at undecided, which is a different thing and behaves differently.
Most situationships begin as talking stages that were never resolved. Comfort accumulates faster than clarity, and there is rarely a week in which anything went wrong; each week, examined on its own, was perfectly reasonable. The Registrar receives more of these files than any other kind. Registrations exceeding two (2) seasons attract offence code RG-02. No penalty attaches to it. Registration has generally been found sufficient.
How do you tell the difference?
The Bureau applies a two-part test. The first part is direction: is there a next step, and does it have a date on it? A talking stage contains a step forward, however small. A plan for the following week. An introduction. A question raised and left open deliberately. A situationship contains a step that repeats: the same night, the same hour, the same conversation not had.
The second part is resolution: has the question of what this is been put, and did the answer change anything? Asked once, with some change following, the matter is still in assessment. Asked twice, with nothing following, the answer has already been given, in the form of no answer, which is the form most commonly used. The single-sentence version of the test is this. If you can describe the routine in detail and the terms not at all, the matter is a situationship.
How long is the talking stage before it becomes a situationship?
The Bureau's working threshold is ninety (90) days. Up to about three (3) months of regular contact without settled terms is ordinary and requires nothing of anybody. Past that point, absent any change in the arrangement, the matter is classified as a situationship regardless of what either party is calling it. The threshold is not a rule about how quickly people ought to decide. It is an observation about how long the deciding takes when it is going to happen at all.
Two things move the figure. Contact frequency shortens it: parties meeting twice a week commonly resolve within four (4) to six (6) weeks, there being less to find out. Disruption lengthens it, legitimately: distance, shift work, or one party sitting thirty (30) to sixty (60) days out of a long relationship. What does not extend it is the passage of another month in the same shape as the last one. That is not a longer assessment. That is a result.
What should you do if the matter has stopped moving?
One conversation, plainly worded, conducted by voice or in person rather than across a text thread where the pauses do most of the talking. Ask for the terms, not for reassurance. Those are different requests and only one of them can be answered. State what you want first, so that the other party is responding to a question rather than reading a mood. I would like this to be a relationship, is that what you want, is the whole of it.
There are three (3) available answers and the third is the common one. Yes changes the file. No closes it. I don't know is not a fourth category; for planning purposes it is a no, and the Bureau suggests treating it as one after fourteen (14) days, which is long enough for a genuine reconsideration and short enough that you are not doing the waiting on somebody else's behalf. None of this makes it hurt less. It does mean that whatever happens next, you were the one who scheduled it.
Common questions
Is a situationship the same as the talking stage?
- No. Both lack a label, which is why they are confused with one another. The talking stage is an assessment period that is expected to end, and usually ends within twelve (12) weeks. A situationship has the routine of a relationship, no terms, and no process for arriving at any. The difference is direction: one is going somewhere, and one has arrived at not deciding.
How long does the talking stage last before it becomes a situationship?
- Commonly two (2) to twelve (12) weeks. The Bureau's working threshold is ninety (90) days: past three (3) months of regular contact with no change in terms, the matter is a situationship whatever it is being called. Meeting twice a week tends to shorten it to four (4) to six (6) weeks. Distance, shift work or a recent long relationship extend it legitimately. Another identical month does not.
How do I know if I am in a situationship?
- Apply the two-part test. Direction: is there a next step with a date on it, or does the same week simply repeat? Resolution: has the question been asked, and did anything change afterwards? If you can describe the routine in detail, the night, the order of things, their friends' names, and the terms not at all, the matter is a situationship.
Can a situationship turn into a relationship?
- It can, and sometimes does. It very rarely does so through the passage of time alone, which is the method most commonly attempted. The change happens at a conversation, or at an external event such as a move, a job or somebody else appearing, that makes the absence of terms expensive to maintain. If the arrangement is costing nobody anything, the arrangement is unlikely to change.
What do I say to get a straight answer?
- Say what you want first, then ask one question. I would like this to be a relationship, is that what you want. Do it by voice or in person rather than by message. Do not ask whether they like you; you already know the answer to that and it is not the matter in dispute. Ask for the terms, then hold to whatever you decide about the answer.
Is this real advice from a real government department?
- No. The Bureau of Romantic Affairs is a satirical body. It has no legal standing, no statutory power, and no capacity to compel anybody to define anything. The thresholds set out above are the Bureau's own working figures, offered because a question of this kind deserves a number rather than a shrug. For anything touching your safety or wellbeing, please consult an actual professional.