It happens to the best of us. He got your number, everything was peachy keen. Your phone buzzed 24/7, you totally got busted during lecture by several professors for texting him, because those classrooms in the Fahy basement make it obvious. You blushed when he saw you on campus and gave you a high five or a grin on the green or in the caf? Then you two fought for the first time. Break out the Taylor Swift CD’s and tissues, you haven’t been this frustrated since that bum from high school pretended to break your unhardened heart. If you’re not sure what happened between then and now, here are four tips to starting your semester fresh.
1. Quit the fighting, especially via texting. You’re a smart college girl now – you’re going to argue with him and then fall even harder when he finally apologizes and makes up with you and “just wants to see you and let you know how much he cares.” Try again. Put the iPhone down, log out of Facebook. The walk from Cabrini to the baseball gate is ten minutes if you walk really slowly. Campus is small enough that you two can meet somewhere quietly – the lounge of a complex dorm, the Living Room, the Cove, one of the benches hidden around the academic buildings. Instead of taking time to craft arguing texts, just agree to meet in person. If you make the offer and he accepts, at the very least you will be able to hash out all of your feelings one last time. It is easier to end the bickering and try to continue normally if you can admit your feelings face-to-face.
2. If you can still hang out, do not agree to intimacy. If you two are civil enough to hang out, hang out with friends. Go to the Rock or Walsh or the field to watch a game, watch a movie with a lot of people, take the SHUfly downtown, go grab some coffee in the Cove or study together on the first floor of the library. Do not put yourself in a situation where you’re alone and have no self control – that means cuddling! Cuddling is just an abbreviation for “let’s shamelessly hook up and not think about how it’ll affect our already clouded judgment and feelings.” If you want to start over, you’ll really have to start from square one.
3. Tell someone about it. None of your friends really know who he is, but that’s okay, because you know the real him. It’s a totally serious friendship, but nothing more. You love him and he loves you, you trust him and he trusts you, but it’s not “like that.” That’s not okay. You have to listen to your friends. Love them for what they say, and let them be mean to you. Explain the entire situation to a friend from home who hasn’t caught wind of every detail. Take what she says with the most gratitude. Your true friends are right. Keeping this to yourself will get you absolutely nowhere. Venting to a girlfriend will give you the best outside perspective possible.
4. If it fails, let him go. So there’s someone else in your life. Or his. Or he’s got a damaged past and he’s not ready, or you just aren’t ready to take that leap of faith. So how do you end it? You have to admit to yourself that what happened in the past is not what’s happening in the future. Sometimes, trying to be “more than friends” for an extended period of time is like scoring a safety in football, or heading a soccer ball into your own goal: shameful and useless. Let him go. If he’s older, which is probably the case, he’ll be out of your eyesight before you can get through The Notebook. Be happy on your own terms, ending something that didn’t start is as simple as deleting a number and buying yourself a few nice things.