So, there I was, locked in a bathroom stall at 11:30 am. I was supposed to be in AP Physics – a class I was failing – but instead, I was perched upon a toilet seat, trying to preserve my eye makeup with a small wad of tissue. It was 2009, a year I often associate with flannel, sweater tights, Frye boots, and being in hysterics over the on-again/off-again “love of my life.” I spent so much time being upset about our relationship that each day I literally had to carve out time to cry (usually in the shower, during AP Physics class, or when I was supposed to be at debate practice – oops). It was exhausting, to say the least. Having spent so much of my junior year agonizing over issues like whether or not I should wear his jersey to his next football game, by the time my senior fall rolled around I had decided that I was over it. Our final breakup was much less painful than I had anticipated.
After my high school boyfriend and I broke up, I initially listened to a lot of Liz Phair music and gained a little weight. Overall, however, making the conscious decision to no longer be a slave to my emotions was incredibly freeing. I finished my high school career like any other self-respecting girl: by writing a few trite yearbook quotes, receiving declarations of love from my many secret admirers, and flooding my Facebook page with an unholy amount of pictures of me and my friends at prom.
When I first got to Tufts, being in a relationship seemed as “high school” as Free People jumpers and plastic handles of vodka. Entering college with more romantic experience than would be lady-like to admit, I felt ready for the life of a single collegiette, random hook-ups and all.
My first college hook-up experiences were exactly what I had expected: late-night texts, fumbling hands, and spinning rooms, not to mention waking up the next morning with a stale taste in my mouth and no idea where my earrings had gone. It was invigorating! Plus, I was good at it (as long as I watched my alcohol intake). I watched as other freshman girls fell prey to their naïve conceptions of love. I saw girls cry in vacant rooms at frat houses, on long walks back to South, and in kitchens of off-campus houses. I even saw a few girls cry while in line at Moe’s. “Ha!” I thought. “See where that gets you! A C- in Physics, I bet!”
I flirted with boys, laughed often, and made some of the best female friends I’ve ever had. And once they had each gotten their hearts broken by boys from all different pockets of the Tufts social scene, we made a silent pact: “From now on when it comes to boys, we are all going to try not to care.” Early on, I embraced as a mantra the phrase that most girls recite to themselves every night that they go out, in every random bed where they wake up, with every text they send or receive, and during every kiss they share: Don’t. Get. Attached.
Cynical though it may be, it is beneficial to adopt this phrase as law. Boys don’t want relationships. They have their buddies, and they bunk their beds so they can have more room to play X-Box. They don’t need a girl to come over just to hang. And even if a guy starts acting like he might care, men are fickle. Sometimes they just want something new, and we girls can’t get upset about that. And, oh, I almost forgot… this is COLLEGE!
I could be the coolest, prettiest, nicest, most well adjusted gal in the whole wide world, but it doesn’t matter – commitment is just not something college guys want. It’s nothing personal, and it has nothing to do with you as a person. Isn’t that a pleasant thought? Believe in this notion, and your future will be free of lonely nights spent crying to Death Cab for Cutie songs in your bedroom.
Yet no matter how relieved I am to have made it through two years at Tufts without experiencing an emotional spiral like that of my junior year in high school, I often feel so replaceable that I don’t even remember the kind of girl I am.
Sometimes while clicking through my own Facebook photos for the 40th time in one day, I think of what it was like to have someone who knew me, loved me, and mourned me, as my high school boyfriend did. I imagine how nice it would be to again feel as though a boy valued me, and to value him in return – not to mention having someone else to Facebook-stalk beside myself.
My high school boyfriend was not worth all the melodrama I awarded him, but during adolescence we blow everything out of proportion. Now that I am 21, I have learned how to manage my life better than I did in those days. I have learned how to keep a measured voice on the phone while negotiating a booty call, and how to temper my expectations when it comes to a long-awaited text. What I haven’t learned, however, is how to feel like I did in high school. I am lucky enough to have incredible female friends with whom I have shared many lovely experiences; girls who make me cry from laughter, rather than from hurt. But from time to time, I still find myself wishing that I had a romance that made me want to write long, sad, self-indulgent poems.
By having vowed not to care about romantic relationships, I have inadvertently robbed myself of agency over my own emotions. I have given other people the power to determine my value, and to dictate what I should and should not care about. It’s not as though I see much potential for love interests while walking around Tufts – I mean, I’m not delusional. But during moments of weakness I sometimes forget that I’m the one making a choice not to be in a relationship, and I start to wonder if maybe I’m just not loveable. Walking around wearing boots and headphones and snickering at texts from my roommates leaves me content most of the time. But when all of my homework is done, my work for my internship is completed, and I have the next day’s out fit completely planned out, I often wish I had someone to think about other than myself. I wish it were easier to care in college.
Photos courtesy of: Gurl.com, ehow.com, askamydaily.com,