« neovox short story | Main | Child Warriors »
September 21, 2005
Out of the Old into the New
College- it’s that exotic, exciting, alcohol consuming, class skipping, party paradise you spent most of your high school career fantasizing about. Your bags are packed two weeks before you’re set to leave, you’ve acquired all your friends e-mail addresses and screen names, and you’re ready to have that good-bye dinner with your significant other.
And for someone reason, he/she is the hardest person to say good-bye to. The water works begin, you can’t stop hugging each other, and the moment you’re in the car traveling to that magical place you’ve been dreaming about sans parents, you two are on the phone saying how much you miss each other.
Time warp to about a month later and normal long distance couples are usually the ones you’ll see standing in the hallway or rec room, with the girl usually crying her eyes out and shrieking about the possibility of a break up.
Usually, they don’t last very long.
Even the most hopeless romantic has to admit that the possibility of a long-term, long distance relationship is slim to none. It’s hard to be without someone for long periods of time while establishing a new life for yourself. The distance between you becomes greater than a few thousand miles.
The next step is the break-up. Once that’s over and done with a new world is ahead of you. You’re living on your own with no parents to answer to and now you’re single. The idea of playing it safe is still in the back of your head just because your mother did such a fabulous job instilling her moral values there, but you decide you would love to have a relationship with someone the next dorm over.
This is where the reality of being on your own for the first time settles in. When you do actually meet someone who’s as interested in you as you are in him, the easy access of it all becomes so apparent that emotions are swept up in a whirl wind of sleep-over’s and party hopping.
When you were home you could have dated someone all four years of high school and you probably only snuck out of the house a few times so the two of you could have a night together. Good parents usually keep a good lock on their children so that no “experimentation” is happening too early.
Now the responsibility has fallen completely on your own shoulders and it’s finally up to you to make some healthy decisions. It’s so strange how college relationships work. In reality, you become so much more invested in them then you ever would have in another relationship and that might be because of the freedom you now have to do what you will with them.
If you just begin to date someone, there’s no more curfew to get home by. The only thing making you leave his/her bedroom is your own judgment. And with constant sleep-over’s and a rapidly growing intimate setting the two of you develop, your emotions become tied together even faster.
So which is better? Long-distance love or up-close and personal connections? Either way, they are both very touch and go. When dealing with long distance you have to trust someone completely and constantly prove to them that you’re trustworthy. Of course in any relationship you have to prove trust, but when he/she lives only a block over it’s easier to trust someone when you can constantly see what they’re doing, or know the people they are hanging around with.
You soon develop this “move-in” complex. He/she is constantly sleeping over; their clothes start to accumulate so much they eventually get their own drawer. You start seeing their little personality traits around your apartment as well as their favorite cereal box in your cabinet, and eventually, the toothbrush settles itself next to yours.
And all of this just happened within a month’s time.
Most grown up relationships don’t even move this quickly. When adults in the “real world” begin dating, there may be the occasional over-nighter, but due to schedules for work or their other responsibilities the idea of moving their personal belongings into your apartment isn’t a thought until things actually become serious.
College students do this at a whim. Yet, maybe the idea of “living” with someone actually is beneficial. You see the person you’re dating in his/her entirety. They become a full character in your life instead of a one-sided boy/girlfriend. In reality, this can actually strengthen the relationship. If his room is so unkempt that you’re finding ex-girlfriend remains around the room, maybe it’s time for a talk. If she keeps unfinished Ben and Jerry’s underneath her bed that are starting to develop maggots, maybe you might want to find someone with a more Martha Stewart vibe.
So even though long-distance love simmered to a passing phone call, up and close relationships in college can be the next best thing to happen to you.
First being your education, of course.
Posted by Deena Aglialoro at September 21, 2005 10:36 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://neovox.cortland.edu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/194