This is not advice. This is a story about how a girl’s life changed, and I will let you decide if it was for better or for worse.
Let me describe my first few weeks of my junior year. There was the Swine Flu… oh, that elusive and ever present disease that our generation will be able to proudly tell our grandkids we survived as we bounce them on our knee. I somehow contracted it, but its source is impossible to trace considering my three roommates and I all got it at exactly the same time. My boyfriend thought I was being a dramatic hypochondriac and ignored my complaints about feeling hot and coughing. Becoming frustrated, I eventually texted him, “Why are you being so distant?” He responded, “I feel like we have been distant for a while now.”
WHAT? What the hell does that mean? I immediately called him, to suddenly learn that the entire summer had felt forced, that I never seemed excited to hang out with him, that I did not seem like the person he fell in love with anymore. How, I wondered, did I possibly miss that one? How did I act one way and think another? But then again, how did he feel that way all summer and not tell me until we were hundreds of miles apart?
Yes, he goes to college in Virginia and I attend school in Maine. Yes, we had been dating for almost three years and went to high school together. With monthly visits that racked up my miles and drained my savings, we survived the rocky freshman year and the drawn out sophomore year. Everyone said we were perfect together, even joked about being invited to the wedding, and actually talked about us as a pair rather than two individuals. And we were in love. Love is certainly one of those sensations you can only describe when you finally experience it, like your first time tasting chocolate and your first orgasm. I am not talking about loving your mother or your cat; I mean knowing that if there is ever something you could do to make him happy, even if it means sacrificing some of your own happiness, you will do it. Spending time with him is like perpetual satisfaction, like being held in a warm and protective bubble where everything you need is conveniently within reach. Sometimes it can be like all seven deadly sins rolled into one deliciously overindulgent bite, and your addiction can never be assuaged. So yes, being in love is a wonderful thing.
Let me rephrase that: being in love with someone where you have more time together than you have apart is a wonderful thing. But that is not what I had. Admittedly, I think long distance relationships are essentially relationships with a cell phone: upset when there is no missed call, upset when he doesn’t answer, happy to see that text, excited to see a voicemail. You are only as accessible as your phone allows, and if there is no service or no battery there is nothing you can do about it. I would never say my boyfriend was obsessive or overprotective, but let’s say I was at a party that was too loud and I would miss a call. Then not respond to a text. Miss another call. Suddenly I was in the danger zone. Not being reachable by my phone equaled doing something suspicious, even though that was never the case.
The first weekend I was boyfriend- and Swine-free, I went out and accidentally left my phone at a friend’s apartment and did not get around to picking it up until the next night. That entire day without my phone was like a breath of fresh air – there was no need for me to be attached to something outside of myself. I realized I could go out and not have to babysit my phone, stay out until five in the morning without raising suspicions, and make decisions independently without having to consider another person in the process.
That may sound selfish, but I never realized how much of a burden it was to constantly have someone approve of your actions until I did not need approval anymore. So what if I have an extra shot? So what if I talk for a long time to the cute guy in my English class? So what if I dance with a stranger to my favorite Lady Gaga song? Even though those actions are just as harmless now as they were when I was in a relationship, it feels amazing to do things without having to constantly answer questions about my reasons behind them.
Being single in college is an adventure: unlike being in a relationship, it is next to impossible to predict the other person’s actions and feelings. The world of one night stands, rejected late night texts, and being ignored at night by the same person who left your room that morning was suddenly pushed into my life. I realized college guys are different from high school boys: about as stable as Mount Vesuvius and make decisions about the opposite sex based what their friends think (more than girls do, if that’s possible). But people also told me I seemed different – more confident, fun, and free, and my brother even told me that within a few weeks he could tell from my Facebook that I just “gave off a new vibe.”
Yes, my boyfriend broke up with me when I had Swine Flu. Suddenly one label was thrown away and another was tacked on. Single. It seemed terrifying: no one outside of the Bowdoin bubble to call when I have no one else to talk to, no security blanket to comfort me when I get stressed or scared. At the same time, independence comes with being single, and I have learned so much more about myself in the past three months than I had in the past two years in college. Whatever this new vibe is, I like it.