If you’ve gone through a breakup right before or during your first years of college, you might have been met with one of the most classic, tired lines from the insecure man you left behind: “You just wanted the college experience.”
But what does that really mean?
In one breath, that sentence effectively removes any responsibility from him and places it directly on you. It reframes the breakup not as the result of unmet needs, emotional distance, or incompatibility, but as a woman’s uncontrollable desire to party, hook up, and just be single every night of the week. It’s dismissive, untrue, and frankly sexist.
This narrative has become a man’s default explanation for women who leave relationships during college — a narrative that is deeply rooted in misogyny.
The version of the “college experience” that most men are referring to is a projection, suggesting that a woman’s desire for independence inevitably leads directly to sexual recklessness. It’s fragile masculinity, men imagining the worst-case scenario so that they don’t have to sit with the truth: a woman has the freedom to leave a relationship that no longer fits who she is becoming.
The Double Standard
When men say they want the “college experience,” it’s celebrated. Framed as growth, exploration, and self-discovery, they’re encouraged to “live it up,” meet new people, and most of all, hook up freely — with zero judgment. That behavior is seen as a rite of passage.
For women, it’s slut-shaming disguised as the “reason for the breakup,” even when hooking up and party culture isn’t a part of the conversation to begin with.
It absolves men from any reflection of what went wrong and turns a woman’s well-thought-out decision into an impulsive one, impeded by her irresistible urge to join the “UCSB party culture;” and most of the time, that’s the furthest thing from the truth.
But if that’s your thing, go ahead! I’m not one to police people on what they do or don’t do as single women. Because that’s the beauty of your “college experience.” It’s just that: yours.
Your College Experience
For many women, the “college experience” has nothing to do with partying every night or chasing male attention. It’s about joining a new club that shapes you, trying out for a club sport that you never thought you’d do before, or just going on new side quests. It’s saying yes to opportunities that once felt intimidating. Building friendships, routines, and confidence on your own terms, without being tied to a person or identity you had before.
To be fair, I’m all for staying in healthy relationships. If both people are growing together and supporting each other’s independence, there is nothing wrong with having your partner be apart of your “college experience” too, even from miles away.
But the moment you feel like you’re missing opportunities or living a version of college designed to make someone else comfortable, it’s okay to leave. Choosing yourself during college means recognizing that this period of life is built for exploration and transformation. Wanting to experience that in its entirety isn’t shallow, and belittling that decision to a misogynistic version of the “college experience” is sexist and blatantly false.
Becoming your own person in college, away from a partner or relationship that was hindering your ability to experience college life, can be the most freeing times of your early adulthood. It’s the best time to learn so much more about yourself, do well in class, throw yourself into way too many extracurriculars to stay busy, and yes, also go out on the weekends to have fun with your friends. That kind of growth should be celebrated, not shamed.
Reclaiming The Phrase
The problem isn’t wanting the “college experience.” The “college experience” is whatever you make it — clubs, sports, friends, activities. The problem is the way misogyny has rewritten its meaning for women.
It doesn’t look one way. It doesn’t come with a checklist or a path that fragile men expect you to follow. The only requirement is that it’s yours.
So if wanting the “college experience” means choosing growth over comfort, freedom over obligation, and self-discovery over staying small to make someone else feel secure?
Then yes. Choose it. It could be the best decision you’ll ever make.
