How do you mourn something you never had? How do you grieve a relationship that never officially existed, a person who was never really yours, and a future that was never promised?

Welcome to the situationship, the romantic equivalent of having your cake and eating it, too, except someone forgot to tell you that you were never invited to the table.

In Nairobi, we might as well call it the art of Nairobbery. Everyone is stealing hearts, collecting emotional investments and disappearing without leaving a forwarding address. The only difference is that, in this particular robbery, you willingly hand over your heart, only to realise there was never a commitment in the first place.

A situationship is everything a relationship is, without the commitment. An entanglement, in the words of Jada Pinkett Smith.

You share the late night calls, the intimacy, the laughter, the secrets and the dreams of a future together. You become part of each other’s lives, sometimes so deeply that the distinction between a relationship and a situationship begins to blur.

But ask the inevitable question, ‘So, what are we?’ and suddenly, you are dealing with a philosopher who believes labels are a social construct and commitment is an unnecessary burden.

Situationships are a playground for people who want the comfort of companionship without the responsibility of commitment. It is an arrangement that thrives on ambiguity, where one person can enjoy the benefits of a relationship while insisting that nobody owes anybody anything.

And honestly, what kind of emotional gymnastics does it take to convince yourself that you can share someone’s life, occupy their heart and still pretend that defining the relationship is asking for too much?

Perhaps that is why situationships hurt so badly. You may never have had a title, but sure as day, you had a connection. You may never have had a commitment, but you had unspoken expectations. You may never have had a promise of forever, but you had begun to imagine one.

And no matter how much you lie to yourself, the heart does not understand technicalities. It does not care that you were never officially together or that you agreed to keep things casual. It remembers the conversations, the intimacy, the laughter and the comfort of having someone who felt like home.

When it ends, you are left trying to make sense of a heartbreak that feels too real for something that was never officially yours. You are not just mourning the person. You are mourning the possibility of what the two of you could have been.

The cruel irony is that situationships leave you grieving something you are almost embarrassed to admit you lost. How do you tell someone you are heartbroken over a person who was never your partner? How do you explain that you miss someone who never officially belonged to you?

Perhaps the answer is that you are mourning the future you imagined, the commitment you hoped would come and the version of the person you thought would eventually choose you. And maybe that is the real tragedy of a situationship — spending so much time trying to convince someone to choose you that you forget you were supposed to be choosing each other.

So, if you find yourself in a situationship, consider this your emergency broadcast. Run for your life. Do not wait for a committee meeting, a sign from the universe or a three-hour conversation about why labels are unnecessary.

You are not a rehabilitation centre for people with commitment issues. And love is not a group project, where one person does all the emotional labour, while the other enjoys the benefits.

If someone wants the intimacy, the attention, the loyalty and the comfort of a relationship but suddenly develops a philosophical objection to commitment, believe them.

Run. Run like your emotional well-being depends on it, because it just might.