Featured in USA Today: What Jordan Conrad Explains About Situationships and Modern Dating

Situationship vs Relationship

In a recent USA Today opinion piece on modern dating and situationships, journalist Andrea Javor sat down with Jordan Conrad, PhD, LCSW, founder and clinical director of Lexington Park Psychotherapy, to discuss how intimacy and relationships evolve over time. Their conversation offers a helpful psychological framework for understanding a question many busy professionals and young people alike are asking: What is the difference between a situationship and a relationship, and why do so many people find themselves stuck in the one they don't want?

Situationships: Why Undefined Relationships Are So Common

The term “situationship” has become a central part of modern dating language. At its core, situationships are a romantic or sexual connection that lacks clear definition, commitment, or long-term direction. While often dismissed as unhealthy, situationships are more, rather than less, common among high-functioning adults navigating dating in NYC and so it is worth at least asking what their connection is to work, success, and high-intensity environments. In the USA Today piece, Jordan Conrad offers a critical reframing:

Not every relationship needs to last forever to be meaningful.

This challenges a deeply ingrained assumption: that relationships are only successful if they culminate in permanence. From a clinical perspective, this assumption often leads people to prematurely force clarity or commitment, rather than allowing relational patterns to reveal themselves over time.

The “Train Station” Theory: A Clinical Model of Relationships Over Time

In his discussion, Dr. Conrad introduces the “train station” theory, a way of understanding relationships as time-bound alignments rather than fixed endpoints. People enter one another’s lives, share a period of connection while their needs and goals align, and sometimes separate when those conditions change. This model reframes dating in a way that is particularly relevant to modern urban environments:

• Relationships are not inherently failures if they end

• Compatibility can be context-dependent and time-limited

• Emotional growth often occurs within temporary connections

  
  

For individuals navigating dating in New York City, this perspective can reduce the pressure to immediately define every relationship, while still encouraging thoughtful evaluation of compatibility.

Attachment Styles in Dating: Why Situationships Can Feel So Intense

To understand why situationships can feel both compelling and destabilizing, it is essential

to look at attachment styles in dating. Attachment theory helps explain why certain relationship dynamics feel familiar, even when they are uncomfortable. In early-stage or undefined relationships, these patterns often become amplified.

For example:

• Individuals with anxious attachment may feel invested in relationships prematurely and experience heightened emotional investment without clear reciprocity

• Individuals with avoidant tendencies may prefer ambiguity to preserve independence, even while wanting relationships or feeling lonely without one

  
  

If several of your past relationships have been situationships, or if it is starting to feel like the norm when dating, it may be because it is activating a deeply ingrained relational pattern. This doesn't mean that feeling over-invested feels satisfying to those with anxious attachments, or that holding partners at arms-length feels good to those with avoidant attachments, just that it feels normal or right; it would feel off and uncomfortable to do it a different way.

Anxious Attachment Relationships: The Hidden Driver of Situationship Cycles

Many people who repeatedly find themselves in undefined relationships are not simply unlucky, they are often caught in patterns of anxious attachment. These patterns tend to show up in recognizable ways: someone becomes emotionally invested very quickly, even before there is real evidence of compatibility (this can overlap with so-called "love bombing"), ambiguity is tolerated longer than it should be, often with the hope that clarity will eventually emerge, what is possible in the relationship starts to matter more than what is actually happening.

From a psychotherapy standpoint, the question is not whether a situationship exists, but what it represents. For some people, it is a form of intentional exploration - a way of getting clear about what you want and who you want to be in a relationship. For others, it is a repetition of a familiar dynamic that never quite resolves. That distinction is often difficult to see from the inside.

Modern Dating Anxiety NYC: Why So Many Relationships Stay Undefined

For many people in Manhattan, situationships feel like a requirement. Modern dating anxiety in NYC is shaped by an environment where time is limited, options appear endless but dates feel unserious, and commitment is nowhere to be found. Dating apps reinforce the sense that there is always someone else to meet. At the same time, social norms have shifted in a way that allows relationships to continue without ever becoming clearly defined.

The result is a particular kind of emotional experience: not acute distress, but a steady background anxiety. People find themselves unsure how to evaluate compatibility, unsure how much to invest, and unsure when to walk away. Over time, this can lead to a pattern: cycles of connection, ambiguity, and disappointment that feel different on the surface but are structurally very similar. And, for those who want a partner or children, each breakup or empty date can feel like a personal failure and a missed opportunity.

Situationship vs Relationship: When Does It Become a Problem?

The difference between a situationship vs relationship is not just a matter of labels. It comes down to alignment and whether both people are participating in the same understanding of what the relationship is.

A situationship can be useful when both people recognize it as limited. There is openness about expectations, and neither person is quietly hoping it will become something else.

It becomes a problem when that alignment breaks down. One person begins to invest more heavily, communication becomes indirect, and important needs go unspoken or unmet.

The question is not simply what the relationship is called, but whether it is mutually defined or persistently unclear.

Can Therapy Help You Date More Successfully in NYC? Understanding Situationships and Clarity

For individuals navigating uncertainty in relationships, talking with a therapist about dating in NYC can provide a structured way to understand and shift these patterns.

At Lexington Park Psychotherapy, this work often involves:

• identifying how attachment styles influence dating behavior

• clarifying the difference between chemistry and compatibility

• developing the ability to tolerate direct communication and clarity

• recognizing when a relationship is aligned, and when it is not

  
  

Rather than offering simplistic advice to avoid situationships, therapy focuses on helping individuals engage in relationships more intentionally.

Dating and Therapy in NYC

The USA Today article highlights an important shift in how relationships can be understood: not every connection is meant to last, but every relationship has the potential to reveal something meaningful. The clinical question is not whether situationships are inherently good or bad, but whether they are aligned with your goals or keeping you stuck in patterns that aren't serving you.

Schedule a Free Consultation

If you find yourself navigating unclear or unfulfilling relationships, working with a therapist can help you move from ambiguity toward clarity. For those seeking a more thoughtful, structured approach to dating, attachment, and long-term compatibility, therapy can help get you there.

Schedule a consultation to begin understanding your relationship patterns—and how they can change.