This is…just…what? Millennials spent years explaining to our elders that “casual dating” is different than being “exclusive” and “exclusive” is different than being “in a relationship,” and being “in a relationship” does not mean you instantly introduce them to your parents, oh my God, Mom. This system was depressing and absurd for boomers. This system was common to millennials. I feel a thousand-years old now that I have learned about Gen-Z innovation, which extends the dating process even further. I am feeling a vibe.
“One big trend that we’re seeing among Gen-Z daters is just more comfort navigating ambiguity, less attachment to titles, and being more fluid in general,” Logan Ury, director of relationship science at dating app Hinge, tells Glamour. But the talking stage isn’t exclusive to Zoomers. There are many people who are wagging their heads at the idea of the social media talking stage every day. “I don’t think that this is generationally specific,” Ury says. We’re in what she calls a situationship epidemic. The question, she says, is, “Are people ready to really get intentional about who they are and what they’re looking for?”
If you’re confused about the true definition of the talking stage, that’s in the spirit of the thing itself. The talking stage can be described as a vague, poorly defined idea. It is similar to a talking stage which is a vague, poorly defined relationship between two people. It is an emotional onomoeia. Popular TikTok creator Chris Nappi offers this definition: “In those first 8 to 12 weeks of a relationship, in the pre-relationship talking stage, they still need to be showing good Dating energy—taking you on dates, hitting you up, making you feel special, showing you respect, building trust—all the things you would want in a relationship.”
Again, isn’t that just…dating? Writer Damisola Sulayman explains in an essay,“I think the term dating traditionally comes with a lot of pressure and expectations because they would need to go out on dates and ‘court’ each other in some sense.” Gen Z are notoriously slow, commitment-phobic daters. More than 20% of the 300 respondents to a Google survey, which included more than 300 people aged 18-24, said that a texting conversation can be considered a date. Over half of the respondents also emphasized the importance of virtual and online dating in their daily lives. “We’ve noticed the convenience of platforms—even our classes have turned from in person to Zoom,” says Nandini. “It’s become so easy and convenient to hang out, but not in person. It’s like: let’s just see if we can vibe through the screen first.”
It is a bit counterintuitive because experts such as former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy have said that Americans are experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness.” In an October 2020 Harvard survey of nearly a thousand people, 36% reported feeling “seriously lonely,” with that statistic going up to 61% for 18-to-25-year-olds. And there’s actual evidence that situationships don’t make people happy—other than the evidence most of us have from hearing that one friend talk about hers for almost three years: 62% of Hinge users reported that their last situationship left them feeling disappointed, and more than a third said they were “upset.”
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That’s out of a sample of people who are on a dating app, to be fair. A situationship, or the talking stage, can be fine, as long as that’s what you want. Ury’s advice for people stuck in a talking stage is to ask three questions: “One: Do I know who I am and what I want? Two: Do you know what the other person wants? Three: Have we had a conversation about it?” It really is that simple. “When we asked users what made a relationship hard to define, why was this a situationship, the most common answer from 56% of people was ‘I didn’t know what they wanted from the relationship,’” Ury says.
Source: Glamour