BreakUps at SLU
It’s October of your Freshman year at SLU. You’ve been through almost two months of sticky ticker makeouts and awkward hello’s to onenight stands on your way to the pub, and avoided the eyes of that creepy senior who somehow got your number and texts you thursday through saturday no earlier than 1 am to “hang out.” On a campus where hookup culture is the unfortunate norm, oneanddone has already become your mentality, whether you like it or not. So, when that one hookup goes out of his way to text you the next morning, you’re almost appalled. You show the text to your friends, at first unsure if it was even intentional, and start an awkward conversation recounting the past night’s activities and how gross it was in the back room of the tick tock.
The days progress, and for some reason this boy is adamant to text you, snap chat you, say hi to you in passing. Still questioning his motives, you play along cautiously, until those days turn into weeks, and you realize that for the past month you’ve hooked up with the same person every weekend. Then, the inevitable “talk” happens, and it suddenly hits you that, somehow, you’re in a relationship at a school where seemingly no one else is. Months fly by and your friend group and his merge, his bottom drawer begins to stash your morningafter comfy clothes, and date nights offcampus become a thing. Everything going so well, you stop asking yourself what could happen if you were to break up. And then, for one reason or another and after however many days, months, even years, you do.
For me, this rude awakening happened over the summer, leaving me both shocked and completely terrified at the thought of returning to school. Every aspect of school, I knew at that moment, would be completely different, from my own group of friends to my once-habitual ditching of the ticker to eat pizza and sleep over in his dorm room on weekends. Once back at school, the change was even more palpable, and completely overwhelming. Suddenly, being in the same room as my ex was no longer an option, creating a battle between inviting my friends or his to pregames. I became incredibly apologetic, realizing that by dating someone, I created a divide between groups of people that I considered great friends. I felt completely at fault that my friends were being affected by something that was singularly my doing. Most of all, I had no idea how things were going to change, between our friends, between he and I and the thought of being alone at school for the first time in so long left me incredibly scared.
Now, over a month later, I can say that those first few days back were indeed incredibly hard. In a school of just over 2,000 students, yes, you will see his face, multiple times and probably more than you thought you did during the course of your relationship. Interactions can be awkward, though they don’t have to be, and being in the same room as him will still be difficult, especially if that room is a party and any girl that lingers too long becomes your mortal enemy for no fault of her own. However, I can say through this experience that time is your best friend. Every day it gets slightly easier to walk the same path to class, or even smile and make small talk. That division in your friend groups will mend, and if not, it will show you who of those friends are your true ones. The thought of being alone will become less scary, and eventually, you’ll be able to once again embrace the single life that you thrived in at the beginning of your freshman year. I do not regret getting into a relationship at SLU, and while the initial aftershock of the breakup made it hard to see, I can thank my ex for teaching me to open up to someone and go against the school’s strong hookup culture and more importantly, after it came to an end, to learn to love being single again. And while SLU’s small campus and even smaller social divides may make this difficult, you will get through it.
As said by my favorite poet who got me through my breakup, Rupi Kaur,
“what is stronger than the human heart
which shatters over and over and still lives”