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10 Experiences You Face While Dating a College Athlete Long Distance

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Wisconsin chapter.

It’s obviously not easy for any of us girls out there riding the long-distance relationship train throughout our years at college. For those of you who can relate to me in making the miraculously wise decision to date a college athlete long-distance, you’ll understand what I mean when I say there is absolutely nothing harder.  I’ve been doing long-distance for two years now and couldn’t be happier—clearly, it isn’t impossible to do. However, I have yet to figure out how to best work the whole situation out, so I’m here to share my experience with all of you:

1.      Conversations throughout the day mostly consist of exchanging a maximum of five text messages that look something like this:

“Hi just woke up, going to my 6 am lift.”

“Going to run now, call u when I can.”

“Exhausted and sore from that workout, taking a nap.”

“Time for practice, ill text you after”

“So wiped from this long day, going to bed, tty tm.”

2.      These text messages make you feel like the laziest, fattest girl in the entire world.

3.      You feel obligated to text him novels about how “busy” your day is too, hoping that before he passes out at night he will somehow manage to read them and see that you’re also a somewhat productive human being.

4.      They constantly complain to you about how they have no time to eat during the day, and you tell them you “feel so bad”… even though you are currently snacking on your third lunch within the hour.

5.      Trying to book flights to visit one another is a three-month process. You eventually end up having to miss four days of class because he absolutely cannot miss his Thursday and Friday morning lifts.

6.      He doesn’t have the patience to explain all of the sports “lingo” or the logistics of the game to you. You just have to pretend you know what he’s talking about at all times.

7.      When you reunite over Thanksgiving, he is in the best shape of his life and you unwillingly gained 10 lbs.

8.      Visiting him for a night out means getting “noogied” and bear hugged by all of his extremely large friends every five seconds.

9.      You have to figure out your date to formal before the semester even starts, because you know he most definitely is not able to attend.

10.  The best part of it all: you don’t ever have to care what you look like or what other guys think of you while you’re at school… because despite what it may seem, he’s there for you through it all.

Dating a college athlete long distance is definitely not the easiest thing in the world.  But, as time goes on, you’ll start to get the hang of it…kind of. It’s a hell of a ride, but this crazy rollercoaster is well worth it in the end. 

Madison is a senior at the University of Wisconsin pursuing a major in English Literature with minors in Entrepreneurship and Digital Media Studies. Post college, Madison plans to complete her dreams of being the next Anna Wintour. In her free time, Madison enjoys listening to Eric Hutchinson, eating dark chocolate, and FaceTiming her puppies back home. When she isn't online shopping, or watching YouTube bloggers (ie Fleur DeForce), Madison loves exploring the vast UW Campus and all it has to offer! She is very excited to take this next step in her collegiette career as Campus Correspondent and Editor-in-Chief for HC Wisco. On Wisconsin!