University, the Ultimate Breaker-Upper

August 13th: “We’re just going to see how things go and stay together even though we are at opposite ends of the country.”

August 31st: “Yeah….. we’re breaking up.”

When people move across the country or internationally, many are left with the question of what to do about their relationship with their boyfriend or girlfriend.

What do you do when you’re going to school across the country and he or she isn’t? Do you allow the long distance factor to break you up? Is it fair to your second half that you’re moving far away and they are just supposed to wait for you to come home? Can you have a relationship without seeing each other until Christmas? Can you ever date someone who is so far away and make it work? What is needed for a “true” relationship? Or are we all just convinced that we have to be in the same city at the same time to date?

What do you do when you meet someone you fall in love with just days before you move across the country? Is geography always the deciding factor in who we love? If there truly is just one person in this entire world that is our true love, then how can we expect that this one and only person will exist within city limits? So what do we do as students when we are faced with the challenge of University? Do we all just break up with our boyfriends/girlfriends of 9 months… 2 years… five years? Five years .. that's me .. long story ..

How can you get over someone when you don’t want to break up with them but you have to? You still have feelings for them, but common-sense tells you that it’s not worth being together. Or should you try to make it work. Is “making it work” even possible? Should we be putting this much thought into a high school relationship? When our parents were our age, they were getting married at 18, 19, 20 and they already knew their true loves, so why can’t we? Why do our parents say that we are too young? So in the end, what do we do?

Are there even any right answers in these situations?

Myself? My boyfriend and I broke up a month before I went to University because I was moving across the country and he was going to attend the university in our home city. We knew five years would be too long a time to remain together from a distance. But still to this day, I miss him a lot. But as much as I love him, I think about the famous quote, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you it's yours to keep." The timing just wasn't right. Maybe if we had met once we were older and had finished our post-secondary education, then we could have stayed together forever with no interruptions.

We'd started dating in elementary school and we experienced lots of things together. We went to Paris for spring break with our high school, to Disney World one summer with his entire family, and to various theme parks across the country where I tried to get him on a roller coaster with me but he was just too scared.

Our last year of high school, we began to wonder if we would stay together when I moved away; when spring came and we had to decide which university we would each attend, we started thinking seriously about it. I had never wanted to go to university in our home city but I could have stayed within an hours drive; then we could have stayed together. But I knew that going to this University was too good an opportunity to pass up. When it became clear that I was moving across the country, we both decided that staying together wasn't going to be an option.

We both felt that it would be impossible to feel like we were in a true relationship with each other since we would be so busy with homework and could only see each other once or twice a year. We are young, we are free, and we both wanted to experience university life to its fullest, without restricting ourselves from meeting new people.

Even though we knew in the spring that our relationship would come to a close at the end of the summer, I missed him more than ever when he went away that summer on a family vacation. When he came home, I couldn't picture how hard it would be to be apart from him for good. No more watching movies together, no more sharing rides to school, no more ball hockey in the drive way and I could no longer see his adorable kitten, Philly.

Now that I've survived the transition, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I send him a "hey" almost every single day and that gets the feelings of how far away he is and how much I miss him out of my system. Even so, I still feel I would be jealous of any girl that he is around. Our mutual decision that we would go our separate ways was sad because our 5 year adventure had to come to an end solely because of geography. But I did find once I made the move to university, being in a different city helped me get over the break up much easier.

I dated another boy for the first three months that I was in first year. I met him in the first week of classes and we hit it off from the start. He taught me to long board and shared his entire music collection of 7,000 songs with me. I absolutely loved sharing my world with him just as much as he did with me.

So here I was, at a new university, new friends, new boyfriend, new clothes and a new life. But that relationship ended as well: he wanted us to move too far too fast, and I was hesitant even though I was falling for him. He didn't know how to communicate how he felt about issues in our relationship with me, so his feelings built up until he became very unhappy. And most importantly, he wanted Sex and I didn't. His feeling was that Sex makes or breaks a relationship; my feeling went back to something my mom once told me about the book Pride and Prejudice. She said that so many people like the book; they especially identify with Lizzy, because they want to have pride like she does. I'm like that. I want my pride. I couldn't be all the things he wanted me to be.

So the relationship came and the relationship went. While it was interesting to be with someone fresh and new, this boyfriend and my ex were very different. My ex-boyfriend from back at home was captain of the hockey team and my university boyfriend hated the sound of skates on ice.

Even though my ex-boyfriend and I continued to communicate throughout this relationship, I never told him about this new boy because he had made it clear that he didn't want to know about anyone I was seeing because he would become jealous. He was happier not knowing. He knew that I was most likely out living my life but didn't want to think about it.

I wasn't tempted to get back with him, because we couldn't deal with the physical distance between us. We continued to stay in touch, and we still do. I still miss being his girlfriend and I wish that our long term relationship hadn't had to come to an end. We both wanted to be with each other but it just wasn't the time. If he was in the same city as me, I would still be going with him for sure. Even though I had those feelings and I probably always will, dating new people is just as exciting.

When it comes to the question of whether you break up or not because of school, I do not see a breakup as a bad thing. In university, you are supposed to meet new people and I believe you will find absolutely extraordinary people that you will want to share your world with, no matter what. The ex-boyfriend from back at home is still my friend and I never want him out of my life. The recent boyfriend and I are not good friends at all.

My ex-boyfriend from back home and I promised each other that if we end up living in the same city again after we are done our Undergrads, we will give dating a shot again. I can't help but look forward to that time.

In the end, it’s all positive. I gained new insights into relationships, and into the way I react to new situations. And I gained a new music collection.