Graduation is creeping up like the bogie man from my childhood closet, and with graduation comes both freedom and fear of entry into the "real world." As I prepare to say goodbye to the wild memories, and AU's very own "Cheers," a.k.a. the Market Place, I have to bid farewell to the current men in my life as well.
I thought I knew better than to get involved with anyone second semester of my senior year, knowing full well that my life after May will be in Manhattan, writing and living on tuna fish and chocolate chips because I will be so impoverished. But you can't help whom you fall for, or the timing of the fall. And so I have found myself in the ultimate college trap: dating with an expiration date.
Most of my mates in college have been men on their way out of D.C. and out of my life. When I was a freshman I dated a second semester senior, a big bad Delta Chi, and he was everything I had imagined my college boyfriend to be. He fit neatly into all of my on-paper criteria, but it was early March when the romance began. He was on his way out of the revolving door of college into the world of PR, and I was just beginning to taste the years of cocktails and 8:30 a.m. classes that would be my college career.
I thought I could alter his intentions, my first mistake. If he fell for me, we would continue to date after he graduated, do long-distance and then eventually get married and have little Jewish babies. Those are the thoughts going through your head after one too many cocktails. He, on the other hand, wanted a casual fling with whatever he thought I represented; a cute girl with a clueless look of innocence plastered across her face. I had butterflies, or so I thought, but what I really had was what he represented: experience, security, a car and a cute frat boy king.
We broke up before graduation, and he moved away. Now that I am preparing to graduate, I have the urge to call him and apologize for being totally ridiculous, but I've refrained.
You would think that after my freshman experience I would have learned that dating men with expiration dates is almost always disastrous. Relationships on the timer can't naturally progress because one or both parties are worried about getting it all in before the grand exit into relationship history. The expiration date also enhances men's emotional phobia of opening up.
Also, for both men and women it's often hard to keep sex and emotions separate. You may know that your bedmate is on his way out of town, but the cocktail of your heart and your sex after glow may prevent you from differentiating between love and lust.
Dating with a deadline is ideal for individuals who have a soft spot for casual sex and relaxed dating. Dating deadlines are also good rebound relationships, because after you realize it's just a recoil relationship, the filler boyfriend leaves town.
I have spent my college years dating men on their way out of the District. My sophomore year I fell hard for a Washington Semester student whose home school was nicknamed "the Soviet Union," not exactly a tropical spot I had fantasies of visiting. He pursued me in the hopes of having a main campus fling with a bubbly sorority girl, but little did he know I was going to make him fall in love with me. But he was a second semester senior preparing to graduate from beer pong to the boardroom. I had voted for long-distance, but he said we should take it one day at a time and see what developed.
He had sex with a girl the very next day after leaving. And with the snap of my fingers I was in another committed relationship with possible marriage material. And as much as we both resented the behavior of the other, we didn't know previously the consequences of dating with an expiration date.
Dating with deadlines can also work if you're a lover of long-distance. But remember that dating chemistry is all about timing and location. He could be your knight in shining armor, but the prince charming look isn't as sexy over the phone or through letters and emails. Another key component of dating: location, location, location.
But if you dare dive into the dating scene of deadlines and have no plans of long-distance phone calls and surprise visits to her office in the next state over, there are tricks to keep casual dating relaxed. Never say "I love you" - don't even think about it. Make sure to keep your literal and emotional space to ensure that you don't leave your heart on the jet plane.
Yet after my laundry list of lessons in love, I started dating a man whose roots reside in Washington. I never expected to fall, and I always conveniently forget to always expect the unexpected. I now have a new appreciation for the dilemmas my exes have faced, and maybe now in the rosy glasses of retrospect I understand why they did what they did.
My major relationship of college was with a southern Jewish lobbyist, who had no plans of leaving Dupont Circle, until I decided to spend a semester with koalas and kangaroos. He was devastated, and for the first time on my dating roster I was the one leaving town. He, being older and wiser, suggested we try an open relationship, but having sex with someone that is not your boyfriend and having it condoned by that boyfriend leaves an emotional mess splattered all over the theory of monogamy. And surely enough, I fell in love with Tarzan, my Boston-born mountain man, and when he read my email and discovered that I was having my own adventures down under, our relationship fizzled shortly after. I should have seen the expiration date and known its consequences, but much like the way in which Bugs Bunny thinks he will always catch Tweety Bird, I always think I can outsmart my own heart.
When I started writing this article, I was dating a man who I could have seen dabbling in long distance with, but only weeks later circumstances have changed and I am reminded that no matter how hard you try to convince yourself, a toad will never be a prince, and a pimp will never be monogamous.
I get to take all of my dating knowledge with me as I pack my bags and head out of town. If nothing else, I get to graduate college with $36,000 a year worth of experience; some intellectual, some theoretical and some practical. My AU experience expires May 8, 2005.
