Great Situationships

Love Letters

The Boston Globe

Love Tips, Breakups, Dating, Relationship Tips, Love, Dating And Relationships, Love Advice, Advice, Dating Tips, Marriage Advice, Breakup Advice, Relationship Advice, The Boston Globe, Boston, Society & Culture, Love Letters, Meredith Goldstein, Dating Advice, Letters, Relationships, Boston Globe

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Situationships. Are they all bad? Can you have a meaningful, hopeful, life-changing … situationship? In this episode, Meredith talks to Nicole, a woman who has come full circle on situationships after many years of resenting them. She’s wanted a permanent partner, but maybe situationships aren’t so bad in the meantime. Meredith also has a conversation with word expert Amanda Montell, of the podcasts “Sounds Like a Cult” and “Magical Overthinkers,” who explains how the word “situationship” has evolved, and why it’s one of the best slang portmanteaus around. ___ Love Letters is also an advice column. Send an anonymous relationship question to [email protected]. Sign up for the Love Letters newsletter at boston.com/meredith . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Love Letters. I'm Meredith Goldstein. Let me say a word for you.
0:23.6	Let me say a word for you, and you can think about how it makes you feel.
0:40.7	The word is, situationhip, which, according to dictionary.com, is a romantic or sexual relationship
0:48.5	that is undefined and noncommittal.
0:52.5	Situationhip.
0:53.8	When you hear that word, what do you think of? A fun and sexy
0:57.8	relationship where you never know what's going to happen? Or do you think of something annoying and
1:02.8	disrespectful? Maybe you think of that dude in college who used to show up at your dorm room at 3 a.m. for
1:08.8	company. Or perhaps you think of the person you're seeing
1:12.3	right now. Actually, are you seeing them? You don't even know anymore because it's a situation ship.
1:19.3	Today's episode is about that word, what it means, and what it can mean, because people
1:24.8	throw it around all over the place. And I think sometimes it's used in the
1:28.2	wrong way or with the wrong mindset. We're going to get into a story today, but first I want to talk
1:33.8	about the language we use and invent when we talk about romance and how these words develop,
1:39.5	like how old is the word situation ship. And to the first people who use that word, are social media ancestors who said it.
1:47.7	What did it indicate?
1:49.8	To figure this out, I must go straight to Amanda Montel, who has a linguistics degree and is
1:54.6	known in the podcast world for shows like sounds like a cult and magical overthinkers.
2:00.3	Amanda wrote a book called The Age of Magical Overtinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality,
2:05.5	which I devoured.
2:07.4	She also wrote a book called Word Slut, a feminist guide to taking back the English language.
2:12.8	I tell Amanda, I'm thinking about the word situation ship.
	...

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