Today’s books, music and movies all seem to centre on romance and relationships. A quick scroll through Billboard’s Top 100 music chart would show a large portion of it dedicated to songs about relationships – whether they are about breaking up or falling in love; losing love or finding it, we cannot seem to get enough of relationships.
Around campus, if you look around, you can definitely spot the different types of couples. If you go into the library or around UTown, you will probably spot the study couple. They start out as just two people who happen to study together because of an assignment or a common class. However, after all that time spent together, they may eventually start dating. Or they could be the couples you see holding hands while plugged into their music players and writing their essays. These are probably those who are already dating but find that studying together allows them to spend more time together.
If you walk around the study tables scattered around campus, you may find some people sitting alone with their laptops and Skyping. These are the marathon runners; those with their other halves in another time zone, trying their best to weather the dreaded long distance relationship or LDR. We all have friends who have been through or are in LDRs, and we know how difficult it can be. It takes a lot of conviction and determination to commit to a long distance relationship and all too often we hear of how it does not work out.
If you look hard enough, you might just see the elusive couple that are friends with benefits. These two would be in a casual relationship, with no strings attached. The FWB relationship has been explored in movies and we see how hilarity ensues from the characters’ antics of trying to remain detached. In real life, though, it is difficult to prevent the emotional entanglements in a relationship and friendships are often hurt irrevocably. After all, emotions are the very foundation of a relationship, making the FWB situation a tricky one to navigate.
Whatever the relationship, it is undeniable that we all seek to form some kind of connection with someone. In fact, it actually benefits our mental health to seek out someone to share our joys and worries with and to lean upon and be leant upon. Yet you might be asking yourself why relationships in university matter. In the grand scheme of things, university is just three or four years of our lives.
Surveys have showed that a large percentage of people meet their sweethearts in university and if you think about it, it makes sense. The campus grounds provide a great space to explore relationships and meet new people. Not all of us find our Romeos and Juliets from the get-go and you would probably have to date a few frogs to find your prince or princess. So until then, the campus is your stomping ground – get out there and who knows whether the next guy or girl you bump into could be ‘the one’. And if it doesn’t work out, I recommend a steady diet of Taylor Swift songs, chocolate and The Notebook on repeat.