The Situationship Survival Guide

Prologue

I wish I could say I was heartbroken because I lost the love of my life.

But the truth is, I was heartbroken over a man who couldn’t even decide if I was worth committing to.

Which is honestly so bad because now I have to heal from something that technically didn’t even exist.

No anniversary.

No label.

No dramatic breakup post with black-and-white photos and a caption about ‘choosing peace.’

Just me… crying over a man who once told me ‘I’d rather die than break your heart’ and then disappeared emotionally like it was a part-time job.

And the worst part? It didn’t even feel surprising.

Yeah. We’re talking about Situationships.

Modern dating’s favorite psychological warfare.

And honestly? In Southside, they almost feel unavoidable.

Because if you live here long enough, you start to realize that almost-loves feel like the real thing.

Not real love. Not the kind that stays. Just almost.

And Southside has a way of romanticizing temporary things—a city where people confuse emotional unavailability with mystery and inconsistency with excitement. Where everyone says they’re ‘going with the flow,’ but somehow the flow always ends with somebody crying in the bathroom at 2AM.

And people like me? We eat that up every single time.

Because hope is a dangerous thing when you’re lonely.

Give us a lingering look, a good morning text, a hand resting on our thigh during dinner, and suddenly we’re building futures out of breadcrumbs.

Fucked up, right?

And nowhere does that happen more often than in Southside.

Ahh, Southside… the place where everyone wants to be.

Where the mornings shimmer against buildings and the nights glow golden under rooftop lights.

Where traffic feels less like inconvenience and more like proof that something important is always happening.

It’s where cafés are never just cafés—they are soft-launch venues, post-breakup therapy sessions, and unofficial casting calls for your next mistake.

Southside is where you reinvent yourself every weekend. New haircut. New book to pretend you’ve finished. New situationship. New “I swear he’s different.”

The air in the city smells like salt, ambition, and failed romance—though there’s always a hint of expensive perfume drifting through the wind.

It’s the kind of city where you think maybe… just maybe… love was meant for you.

But it’s also where love can quietly pack its things, close the door gently, and leave you staring at your reflection like you’re the only one who didn’t see the ending coming. It’s the place where you’re devastated over something that technically never existed.

And then it got me thinking.

In a city this alive, hungry, and beautifully distracted, why does a three-month situationship hurt more than a relationship that lasted years?

These are the things that crossed my mind… while a guy was pounding me from behind.

“Fuck, bro! You’re tight!” he said.

Tight. What a word.

I had spent three months loosening myself for someone—loosening my pride, my expectations, my entire future—only to end up emotionally stretched thin.

Three months of constant texting. Good mornings that felt intentional. Future plans said casually, like they weren’t dangerous.

Three months of thinking I had found something real in a city that never stops offering options.

And now, I was being complimented for the one thing in my life that apparently still had limits.

Funny how heartbreak makes everything feel wide and raw, but in the middle of a stranger’s condo with the city shimmering outside the window, the only thing he noticed was how ‘tight’ I was. Not my heart. Not my depth. Just my hole.

“Bro, I’m close,” he said, his voice thinning.

Close.

I used to love that word.

Close meant shared moments, toothbrushes, knowing someone’s Starbucks order without asking.

Close meant somebody choosing you naturally, without hesitation or without confusion or without having to decode mixed signals like you were solving a murder case at 10PM with tears in your eyes and Taylor Swift playing in the background.

Funny how people can make you feel close without ever actually choosing you.

But then my thoughts got cut off because, suddenly, the stranger’s hand grabbed the back of my head, pushing my face against the pillow like I was a piece of meat.

There was pressure. A breath. A pleasured grunt that told me he came.

He collapsed beside me like he’d accomplished something.

I stared at the ceiling.

And that’s when it hit me.

Three months.

Three months of anticipation. Of imagining potential. Of falling in love with someone who never actually promised me anything. Three months of “almost,” of “maybe,” of “let’s see where this goes.”

And somehow, that hurt more than anything that came with labels.

A teardrop fell beside my face.

But I wasn’t crying because the guy beside me had rearranged my guts. I was crying because the guy I wanted never showed up.

Because here I was, naked in a stranger’s condo, with the city sparkling like it approved of my choices, realizing that this sex wasn’t moving me forward. It was just helping me avoid standing still.

And in Southside—the place where everyone wants to be—standing still felt like the most terrifying thing at all.

“Wanna go again?” whispered the guy, kissing my shoulder like this was intimacy.

“You still hard?” I asked.

“You top me this time,” he said.

I raised my brow in disbelief.

Hell no.

I’m a fucking bottom.