A desi situationship has a particular texture that I've come to recognize very well. It's not just two people who haven't had the define-the-relationship conversation. It's two people who've consciously or unconsciously decided that the cost of defining it, in either direction, is higher than the cost of staying in limbo. And that calculation, in desi culture, is not irrational. It's just expensive in ways that compound over time.
The applicants who come to Garam Masala Dating after a long situationship all describe some version of the same experience. They were something with someone. Something that mattered, something that took real emotional energy. And yet when it ended, or when they finally had to admit it wasn't going anywhere, there was almost no social framework for it. Because it had never officially been anything.
Why desi culture creates the perfect situationship conditions
Desi dating culture has very few well-worn paths for the in-between space. There's serious courtship, meeting the family, talking about the future, moving toward marriage, and there's nothing. The concept of dating someone in a low-stakes, getting-to-know-you way without any immediate marriage intention is not something most desi families have a comfortable script for.
So what happens? People date in private. The relationship exists in DMs, in coffee shops in neighborhoods where neither family might see them, in careful exclusions from family group chats. And because the relationship is kept off the books, it's easy for it to stay undefined indefinitely. There's no external pressure to formalize, because the external world doesn't know it exists.
The 'what will people think' trap
'What will people think' operates in two directions in a situationship, and both of them keep you stuck. On one side: if you define the relationship and it fails, the community will know you had a failed relationship. The aunties will have opinions. Your parents will worry. The social fallout of a visible, failed relationship can feel significant enough to avoid the risk of formalizing things.
On the other side: if you're already somewhat visible as a pair, if family friends have spotted you, if you've been to weddings together, if there's some level of community awareness, walking away has its own social cost. People will ask what happened. You'll have to give an explanation for something that never had an official name. The ambiguity that protected you going in now traps you on the way out.
The situationship trap in desi culture is also deeply connected to how families use compatibility metrics to apply pressure, a pattern that the piece on weaponized compatibility gets into directly.
The settle-or-hold pattern
There's a specific desi situationship dynamic I think of as the settle-or-hold pattern. One or both people have genuinely ambivalent feelings: they like each other but aren't sure this is the person. In a lot of cultural frameworks, you'd just... see more people. Date around. Figure it out with more data. But desi dating, especially for women, doesn't always allow for that openly.
So instead of dating multiple people or ending the ambivalent relationship, people hold. They stay in the situationship because leaving feels reckless, what if this is actually the person and you walked away from them?, and committing feels premature, what if you say yes to this person and then the right person appears? The situationship becomes the answer to an impossible dilemma.
The real cost of staying in desi limbo
Situationships charge full emotional rent. You invest real feelings, real time, real energy. You have real fights. Real good moments. Real grief when it ends. But because the relationship was never formally defined, you often don't get the social support that a 'real' breakup warrants. 'We were kind of a thing' doesn't mobilize your support network the same way 'we broke up after two years' does.
There's also the opportunity cost. Desi situationships can run very long, sometimes years, because of all the mechanisms that keep them stable. Every year in a situationship is a year of not quite being available for something real. Not emotionally, even if you'd technically say you were single.
The people who come to Garam Masala Dating fresh off a long situationship are ready to be seen. They're ready to be an actual option, an actual contestant, not a secret. If that sounds familiar, the show is a good place to start. Applications are open, and we will absolutely put you on stage.
