In the aeon of 'situationships', the urge to find that 'one true love' — A take on the present day 'relationships'

Lately, while chatting casually (nevertheless meaningful) about life, love with some of my students (between the age group 22–25), the Gen Z generation as they call it now, I got apprised with some words that till now I had never encountered, at least not amongst the people of my age credentials.

- DR. NIDHI SHARMA

"To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life." Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

Words, or if I may put correctly, the "relationship status" with which they describe their romantic connections. One of the girl students explained a term "situationship" to me, which apparently means a "casual scene" between the partners with no intention of ever falling in love with each other. But then another girl student was quick to respond, "but a person reaches the "delulu" world if they fall in love with the other person."

Well, me being a 37-year-old person and relatively a little oblivious to such terms had to stop them and ask as to what "delulu" means, and it turned out that it means living in a delusional world. It took me 10 seconds to grasp the newly found information with quite a lot of contemplation. While I was just trying to encompass my thoughts with two new learned Gen Z words, another male student steps in and teaches me about "breadcrumbing" and "ghosting." I breathed a sigh of relief and, to be honest, felt a little elated that at least I knew what ghosting meant, but for breadcrumbing I still had my ears and mind glued towards my student. Without much ado, he tells me that it's a manipulative trick wherein one person keeps throwing baits at the other who is actually in love with the former. Neither the former gets into any form of commitment, nor do they let the other go. So basically, the one in love is invested in a certain "relationship" without the other one being in that relationship.