Name: Ryan Alevy
Age: 21
Hometown: Jacksonville
Relationship Status: Taken by the wonderful Sarah Sweeterman
Major: Psychology with minors in Social Welfare, Communications and English.
Her Campus (HC): What do you do in your spare time?
Ryan Alvey (RA): I do my homework. I spend time with my friends and my girlfriend. I listen to music. I’m really into movies.
HC: Favorite movie right now?
RA: Probably, Begin Again. It’s really good. I saw it recently. I listen to the soundtrack and it’s fresh.
HC: We hear you feed the homeless on Sundays.
RA: My friend Kyle and I go and make sandwiches, get our backpacks, walk around certain parts of Tallahassee, and interact with the homeless. We do give them food and drinks but we try to interact with them too. We want them to know that we actually want to talk to them, that they aren’t just recipients. For me it’s both a spiritual thing and a social thing. It’s what I felt called to do spiritually, and I like to take what I believe outside of a church or a home. It’s just a thing we do on Sunday, we call it Sunday Lovin’.
HC: Tell us about your girlfriend.
RA: The wonderful Sarah Sweeterman. We met on our own terms. It wasn’t through friends. I introduced myself to her in class because we were in a social psych class and my professor said you shouldn’t be a sheeple [someone who doesn’t go out of their comfort zone]. I had a friend in the class at the time that I was kind of with and we met because she had just approached me. So we were like “ yeah we should meet people, talk to people, sit different places” and so there was this girl who was quiet and always sat in the same spot so we were like lets attack this sheeple person. So we started sitting next to her and I told her I liked her watch. She was with someone else and we didn’t like really reconnect until the next fall. We had a class together; we started doing quizzes together you know, tag team. Then we started dating. It was just so natural. I’ve never had anything that fluent before. It just felt really right. It still does. That’s kind of the story which probably isn’t that interesting. What I love the most about Sarah. I felt like everything that I was, was everything that I was. She made me realize is that it’s not just who you are but it’s also who you’re not. We are just as much the things that we are as the things that we’re not. Sarah just makes me realize stuff. Sometimes she just drives me crazy. A thing I also love about her is it’s really, really easy to love someone and have this all buttered up happy face and you don’t want to hurt someone and it’s all happy with them but one thing I love about Sarah is that she really loves me and looks out for me. If I’m doing something or I’m not being safe, she tells me. Sometimes ugh I hate it, but I realize that Sarah loves me. She’s not trying to hound me or yell at me, she’s just looking out for me and not a lot of people do that. It feels nice to recognize that because Sarah really cares about me and it’s deeper than that face value stuff. You know? I think it is easy to love someone but also really difficult like it’s easy to fall in love but not easy to stay in love. I have this quote that explains it really well. I asked my friend a few years ago what she thought love was and I didn’t even know Sarah then and I think this is the best way I’ve ever heard love explained and it’s a quote. “Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like a volcano and then it subsides and when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots sew and twine together so that it is inconceivable that you be apart. Because that is what love is, love is not breathlessness, it is not commitment, it is not the propagation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to make every second nor minute of the day. That is being in love which any fool can do. Love itself is what’s leftover after being in love has burned away. This is both an art and a fortunate accident.” I think that’s a lot of what I feel with Sarah. Especially now that we’ve been together for almost 9 months and a lot of that honeymoon stuff has faded away. I still want to spend time with her, I still need her around.
HC: Does the future scare you at all?
RA: Yeah, but in the finale of The Office there’s this great line. Andy Bernard, is saying like “Man I remember when I was at the office whenever I was working here I was always thought that at Cornell that those were the good old days and now I’ve moved on from working at Dunder Mifflin and now Dunder Mifflin was the good old days and I wish you could just realize you’re living the good old days when you were in them.” That’s how I think about the present especially with a relationship. Like if I’m always thinking about the future I’m never going to enjoy the present. Then I’m going to get there and I’m just going to keep worrying with that mentality. Yes, It’s kind of ambiguous, and yes, we’re both looking to go to grad school but I feel like if we worry about the future too much it’ll destroy our present. Then, it’ll just be a really upsetting past. Sarah is not worth wasting time with. I’m not going to sacrifice the present over something I don’t even know. I’m a psychology major and I think one of the biggest mistakes is trying to project our present onto the future. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I love Sarah and that’s what I know right now.
HC: Got any advice for the single ladies out there?
RA: For the general population and there are exceptions but I’ve never been involved heavily in the club scene which I’m sure is sexually heightened and intimate but number one, if that’s what you’re looking for, that’s great but if you’re looking for a relationship that’s intimate and lasting I don’t think that’s the place. People aren’t who they are when they’re sober when they’re drunk. I think it’s a false reality. Specifically for girls, it’s better to have “oh wells” than “what ifs.” Getting your heart broken is okay, because then when something really great happens, you recognize it.