Every little girl has the fantasy of being swept off her feet by a boy who treats her like a princess. Every little girl and most teenage girls have unrealistic expectations of love although; things begin to change as you grow up.
When you reach high school you realize that being swept off your feet may be a long shot, but you’re still willing to try it out. You and your boy probably knew all the same people, took the same classes, went to football games together, ate the same not-so-real chicken sandwich during lunch, etc. Whether you’re with the same person you were with in high school or you have found someone completely new, one thing is for sure; relationships aren’t nearly as easy as they were in high school. If you got your heartbroken in high school it didn’t really matter in the long run, you knew you’d go off to college eventually and leave it all behind (unless they go here…yikes).
College relationships are completely different from high school. Most of us know by now that a guy who looks like Matt Damon, plays like LeBron, sings like John Mayer, and treats you like a goddess is just not realistic. Besides that, most people don’t know who they are in college or who they want to be. Obviously, if you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what kind of person you want to date. This poses a problem because many people use a relationship to try to find out who they are. Bad idea. It is nice to have someone that always has your back, but you need to be able to fend for yourself before you even think about getting into a relationship. I’m not saying that you need to know exactly what you want to do with your life, where you want to live, and what job you want to have. However, you need to give yourself the opportunity to figure those things out on your own. You need to love who you are and where you are going before you even start thinking about loving anyone else. College kids are pulled in a million different directions; torn between home and school, high school friends and college friends, classes, clubs, sports, grades, blah, blah, blah. Adding a relationship to the mix is extremely difficult.
I guess I’ve learned that relationships are a balance (not just romantic ones, by the way); a balance between compromising and standing up for what you want, a balance between growing together and growing individually, a balance between taking your own chances and a balance between being there for each other and knowing when to shut up. Maybe relationships aren’t about being perfect all the time. Maybe they are about learning about another person and in that, learning about yourself. Every relationship teaches us something new, maybe now we’re just smart enough to see it.