1.) The amount of times you see them each week in college is way less than it was in high school.
Now, if you’re really really lucky, in college, you might have one or two lectures a week with the guy you like, and be able to cram in some “It’s October 3rd”’s between your rapid notetaking in class. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll develop an inexplicably huge crush on that guy with the gorgeous brown eyes that you talked to like once in line at Jamba Juice. In high school, liking a guy you never talked to was easier, because even if you had no classes with them, you were basically guaranteed to see them a few times a day. Being stuck prisoner in one building for 8 hours had its perks. Sure, college is fun and all, but not having any automatic face time with your crush all week can be depriving.
2.) But finding free time to spend together and places to hang is much easier.
In high school, once you got out of class, finding a time to hang could be kind of difficult. Unless your high school love life was basically a scene from a YA romance novel, there weren’t exactly ‘hangout’ spots all around town you could invite him to casually meet up at. It was especially problematic if neither of you had a car, or if either of you did a varsity sport. In college, that totally changes. Seeing him walking towards Beckman and inviting him to grab Starbucks with you, or sitting in a chair next to him in the library during finals week are easy, laid-back ways to get the ball rolling. And if you had some semblance of luck during the registration process, your schedule has plenty of free time to make these things happen.
3.) Curfews are never a problem in college.
Unless you’ve got an Italian test the next morning and are forcing yourself to be glued to your computer all night, you probably have tons of free time from 10pm on. If you’re a night owl like me and would prefer to watch 12 episodes of Gossip Girl before drifting off at 2am, taking advantage of the fact that you’re both up late is an easy way to get to know each other better. And by the way, Dragonfly Tea Bar on Chapman Ave is open till 4am. Just saying. Also, Ubers are a thing now.
4.) And college crushes are way more casual than high school crushes.
In high school, crushes were a huge deal. The initial buildup, the telling one friend, her telling all your other friends, it spreading to his friends, them telling him, him either asking you out while you grab mozzarella sticks or avoiding you like you’re infected with a strain of mad cow disease that could spread to him if he enters your immediate vicinity, yadda yadda yadda. But in college, with such a casual hookup culture in place, it’s hard to feel like you’ve found your soulmate when you meet the guy in a creepy frat house bathroom line. This casualness makes for a much easier and less stressful crushing process. Having a crush on a guy and seeing him with another girl while you were in high school could be not only sad but also embarrassing if everyone knew you liked him. Conversely, in college, there’s such an ever-changing plethora of potential beaus that a simple shrug and deletion of his number will do the trick nicely. Plus, there’s no one constantly asking you about it to make it drag on and on.