Situationship: Why They Keep Coming Back
You had almost let go. Then one message pulled you all the way back.
After days of silence a small message arrives and the hope is instantly back. That is not chance, it is a pattern with a name. What helps is writing it down: three columns, a few weeks long, and you see the next round coming before it catches you.
It has been quiet for days. You start to accept that it is over, and there is even something lighter in that. Then the screen lights up. "Hey, you crossed my mind today." That is all it says: no question, no suggestion, not a word about where the two of you stand.
And still you are instantly full of hope again, as if the silent days had never happened. You read it three times and wonder how long you should wait before answering.
This is the best-known part of a situationship and the one people talk about least. There is a mechanism behind it that can be explained.
Why does one message reset everything?
Whitchurch, Wilson and Gilbert showed female students profiles of men who had supposedly seen their profile beforehand. The first group was told these men liked them a lot, the second that the interest was average, and the third was left in the dark. That third group reported the strongest pull and thought about the men the most. When Montoya and colleagues repeated the design four years later and measured liking apart from the motivation to meet and talk, only the motivation held up.
That correction makes the mechanism more exact rather than less. Someone who answers you clearly leaves your head, because the question is answered. Someone who leaves you in the dark keeps you writing back. And after a few weeks you take all that reaching out as proof of how much you feel. When it turns into thinking about them all day, the more precise word for that state is limerence.
Why does a short message work better than real attention?
Ferster and Skinner described this in the fifties. A reward that arrives irregularly lasts longer than one that arrives every time, and the behaviour behind it stops far more slowly. The stretch without messages is not a break from the pull. It is what builds it.
There is something else most people do not enjoy hearing about themselves. Helen Fisher and her team studied people who had been rejected by someone they still loved. The regions that lit up were those responsible for reward and craving, the same ones involved in cocaine craving. You can be strongly drawn to something that reliably makes you unhappy.
What does each round cost?
Count in time, and count the rounds rather than the weeks. Four rounds are four first months, and in each of them you waited for a clarity that nobody between you has to produce. For the person who feels less, the ambiguity is comfortable. For the one who feels more, it is expensive.
| How it feels | What it is |
|---|---|
| Something is moving again | The first month, starting over |
| They are reaching out, so I matter to them | They are reaching out, so nothing had to change |
| I am close to an answer | Nothing between you ever has to produce one |
"You are not waiting for the other person to decide. You are waiting for a decision that nothing between you requires anyone to make."
Simone Pleifer · Journals by Simone
How do you break the hope cycle?
You make it visible. A round you can predict stops steering you and becomes something you can work with. For that, three columns over a few weeks are enough.
Write down the day it went quiet, and how you felt about it on day three. That is exactly the part memory rewrites later, once the hope is back and everything appears in a warmer light.
Write the message or the moment down word for word, and then how long it took until the hope was fully back. Most people are surprised by how small the trigger is.
Write one line a week later. Did anything between you actually move? After three or four rounds you read the answer off the page instead of out of the hope.
That is the four-step method applied to a pattern rather than a single night: notice, name, regulate, decide. The full method is in What Is Emotional Clarity Journaling. If you are not yet sure whether this is a relationship at all, start with What Is a Situationship, and if it gets loudest after midnight, How to Stop the 2am Thought Loop is about that hour.
Frequently asked questions
Why do they come back every time I am almost over it?
Because a reward that arrives irregularly binds the hardest. Ferster and Skinner described in the fifties that a behaviour lasts longer when it is only rewarded sometimes. The silent days are therefore not a break, they make the next message bigger. And the less you know where you stand, the more often you reach out.
Is a situationship the same as breadcrumbing?
They overlap, but they are not the same. Breadcrumbing describes what the other person does, the small signals that keep you within reach. The hope cycle describes what happens in you afterwards: the relapse, the fresh hope, the waiting starting over. Only the second one is where you can work.
What do you do when they get back in touch?
Make the pattern visible before you decide about the person: note when it went quiet, what pulled you back, and what actually changed afterwards. After three or four rounds the pattern is on paper, and a pattern you can predict stops making the decision for you. How to get through the first weeks after a situationship ends is the subject of How to Get Over a Situationship.
You are allowed to want clarity more than the next message. That is not cold and it is not giving up. It is simply noticing that this back and forth has been answering your question all along, in the only language it has.
Sources
- Whitchurch, E.R., Wilson, T.D. and Gilbert, D.T. (2011). "He loves me, he loves me not . . .": Uncertainty can increase romantic attraction. Psychological Science, 22(2), 172–175. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21169522 (retrieved 2 August 2026)
- Montoya, R.M., Faiella, C.M., Lynch, B.P., Thomas, S. and DeLuca, H.K. (2015). Further exploring the relation between uncertainty and attraction. Psychologia, 58(2), 84–97. doi.org/10.2117/psysoc.2015.84 (retrieved 8 August 2026)
- Ferster, C.B. and Skinner, B.F. (1957). Schedules of Reinforcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. doi.org/10.1037/10627-000 (retrieved 1 August 2026)
- Fisher, H.E., Brown, L.L., Aron, A., Strong, G. and Mashek, D. (2010). Reward, addiction, and emotion regulation systems associated with rejection in love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 104(1), 51–60. doi.org/10.1152/jn.00784.2009 (retrieved 2 August 2026)
Simone Pleifer, MSc
Simone Pleifer, MSc, is the founder of Journals by Simone and the creator of the Emotional Clarity Journey system. She holds an MSc in Nutritional Science and has 14 years of experience in pharmaceutical clinical research. Her work bridges scientific rigour and emotional depth for people navigating secret love, situationships, and unspoken feelings. She is currently developing a supplement line to complement the ECJ system.
About Simone