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What's a 'Maybelatership' in Dating?

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22.06.2026

The Science of Mating

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A "maybelatership" is a trending subtype of a "situationship," but it may not be very different in reality.

The difference is that the term offers ambiguous potential for progressing to commitment someday.

The person could be dragging his or her feet deliberately to keep stringing you on or keep options open.

If you're not OK with it, push to define the relationship or at least the timeline and establish boundaries.

This isn't a call me maybe situation. It's a "maybelatership." And it may be just a subset or an offshoot of a situationship.

What Is a ‘Maybelatership’?

While the term "maybelatership" may seem to be relatively new, trending on social media, and potentially increasing in prevalence, the concept is maybe not so new. A maybelatership is when you are romantically involved with someone in some way, but at least one of you doesn't want to define it or establish some kind of commitment just yet. Instead, the desire is to leave it ambiguous until maybe sometime later.

This may sound like any kind of "situationship," which I have covered previously in this blog. But there may be one potential distinction. Rather than avoiding any "define the relationship" discussions or saying something like "Let's just keep it casual," that doesn't hint at any future changes, the person who wants the maybelatership indicates in some way that there is the potential of a more committed relationship sometime in the future. The person may say something like “I need to focus on my career at this moment,” "I have to deal with other things right now," "I just need........

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