First Year Relationships

So I had my first college relationship three months into my freshman year, with a popular senior on campus. Looking back, it's kind of funny that I managed to catch the eye of a senior, but it was an overall good relationship. I had met Owen through another boy who had liked me at the time, but Owen and I hit it off very well, so I kind of forgot about the other boy :-) Owen and I became friends quickly and pretty soon we were talking on the phone every night and I began to develop feelings for him. Not too long after, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Our relationship was a great one for the most part. Every relationship has its issues, but we honestly did not have many at all. We spent a lot of time together and our relationship was very public. Our facebook pages showed we were in a relationship and we frequently walked around campus holding hands. Other people on campus, particularly girls, did not like the fact that I was a freshman. They wrote mean things in both Owen’s and my facebook boxes, calling Owen a homosexual, telling me that he was "only after one thing," asking how I knew him, telling me our relationship wasn't going to last, etc. At first, and even a little bit now, it really bothered me that people were saying these things. Since when was my relationship anyone else's business? Owen comforted me and we both decided to brush it off after we talked about it a little. At the end of the day, we knew we cared about each other so nothing else mattered.

The summer after my freshman year, we spent a lot of time together because we only lived an hour away from each other in my home state. I met his family, he met my family, and I even helped his mother plan a graduation party for him after he graduated in May. We continued to date for three quarters of my sophomore year until we broke up this past April and all in all, my relationship was very good. We did have a bad breakup and unfortunately don't talk anymore, but it was great while it lasted.

If I were a different person, I think I would have felt a lot of pressure about my relationship, more so than I did at the time. It may have caused the relationship to at least not be so public or resulted in our breaking up for a little while. People wrote mean things to both me and my boyfriend at the time on facebook, and we were always hearing rumours about what people were saying weeks into the relationship. There was a clique of freshman girls called the "Core" (they disassembled my sophomore year) who I heard did not like me at all, because they wanted "first dibs" on all the men on campus (which is quite foolish if you ask me). If I were a different person, I would have probably avoided public places with my boyfriend, like the dining hall, and wouldn't have walked hand-in-hand with him on campus or anything like that; although we never kissed in public because I am not a fan of PDA. However, at the time, I had no doubts about my relationship and I genuinely cared for him. We had a truly great, communicative, caring relationship while it lasted, a year and four months, and I have no regrets.

Life is too short to let others dictate how your life should run. If you believe in something, believe in it wholeheartedly and don't let anyone undermine your belief, regardless of what it's about. College is a place of learning, growing, and maturing into the man or woman you will become so don't allow other people's opinions to influence you. Be yourself. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind (that's a quote by Dr. Seuss).