The 5 People You’ll For Sure Date In College

1. The guy/girl who belts out Country Roads, then gets quiet because he/she doesn’t know the in-between verses, and then gets really loud again when the chorus comes back on:

This person is fun for a time — they represent the unmitigated excitement and enthusiasm of this chapter of your life — but is ultimately far from a keeper.

2. The Not-A-Relationship:

This is a given. Over the course of your four year stay, it’s all but guaranteed you’ll date someone who isn’t dating you.

3. The guy who’s always at the gym, who’d you’d dismiss as a giant toolbag if you didn’t know he works excessively out as a means of coping with clinical depression:

They’re always at the gym, being in really good shape and obnoxiously high-fiving the other people at the gym.

Is this because he’s a shallow, unintelligent specimen who only cares about his burgeoning 8-pack? Or is it because this the most effective way for him to remain an upbeat, functioning member of society?

4. The High School Sweetheart person who you grow apart from over time, but don’t want to hurt their feelings too suddenly.

In college, you will most certainly date someone who you wanted to break up with three months ago (but haven’t yet because you’d feel too bad about ending it so abruptly). The key here is to drag your feet as stubbornly as possible, so the otherwise magical relationship ends in a whirl of bitterness and resentment.

5. Whatever you need this one to be, just so we’ve got an even five.

I dated three people in college. Actually it was more like two — I count one of them as a relationship, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t. Anyway, five people seems like a lot — that means you’d have to be in an official relationship with someone five out of the 8 semesters — and that’s assuming each relationship is only three months long. What if you date someone for a whole year? That’s a lot of ground to make up. And what about being single? Isn’t it the time you’re supposed to be discovering yourself, and the empowering ability to forgo life-changing reading assignments for $8 bottles of vodka — only to mildly regret those decisions later in life?

So much pressure. Good thing we have light, expectation-free articles like this one!