I hadn’t fully understood what trust really was until the minute I stepped onto the University of Kentucky’s campus. Actions are stronger than words and it’s easier to believe words until you actually see what your significant other does when you aren’t around.
My boyfriend, Scott, and I started dating freshman year of high school and we were never expecting to make it a year, much less until college. We never wanted to be the couple that vowed to never break up in college no matter how hard things got. Words were the only glue that maintained our dwindling belief in each other’s promises.
By the time I was getting adjusted to class during the third week at school, Scott was just moving into his dorm at Wofford College in S.C. He’d broken up with me about five days after I’d moved to Lexington out of fear that I’d turn into the stereotypical party girl.
“My biggest fear was that we would both miss out on ‘the college experience,’” Scott said.
The weeks that passed post break-up were painful and slow. It wasn’t until we made the decision to get back together that I’d learned he’d had just as much of a difficult time as I had.
Scott said that “the first few days I felt like I had made the right choice, but shortly thereafter I realized how much you truly meant to me and how anybody else I met didn’t really live up to you.”
To me college only seemed as special as you make it, and we’d been planning to make it special together, even if we were six and a half hours away from each other.
“Distance makes the heart grow fonder and it makes you appreciate the time you have with each other more,” said Madelyn Bucksath, who was broken up with her on off boyfriend of two years when school started.
Being in a long distance relationship became less about being in a romantic relationship and more about how good we were as friends.
“The worst part about not being in a relationship is just not having that one person who you can always talk to,” Scott said.
I found it somewhat scary to not have the person in my life. I learned that my best friend was the boy I’d been spending almost every second of everyday with in high school. We’d lost sight of what brought us together in the first place: our stubbornness, our love for alien movies and, most importantly, our love for one another.
It made sense to be in relationship in college because that’s all we’d known in high school, but our short time apart from each other in college taught us that being together what we wanted for reasons other than it was all we’d known.
Coincidentally, the friends I’ve made here are all still in long distance relationships from high school and are learning more and more about one another each day.
“It’s just nice that someone knows you so much better than your new friends so you always have that person to talk to you and you know they’ll understand,” says Bethany Harrell who’s been dating her high school boyfriend (now at IU) for a year and half.
“It’s hard. It takes a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of patience,” says long distance alum Caroline Mali.
As much as your parents or older friends will tell you that college is so much better single, it is not always the case. Dating my best friend for so long gave me the clarity to realize that distance does make the heart grow fonder and the end of something small is the beginning of something huge and elaborate.