rigger warning (TW): Discussion of sex, consent, and non-consent

College is a strange and confusing experience on its own, but throw in love and you’ve got four straight years of headaches and nausea. Do any of us actually have time for romance in between classes, parties, and all that drama? Somehow, some way, we find time for it amidst all the chaos. For your entertainment, below I share some embarrassing and ridiculous stories of romance (or something close to it) from my last four years of undergrad. But hey, at least, they make for amusing stories afterward right?

1. The story unfolds with my first kiss.

I don’t know if I even wanted to kiss him. The only thing I knew was: I was not comfortable with him trying to kiss me in public. So we went from one dorm to another looking for an empty living room. Problem was, people were trying to study in said living rooms. (I imagine the school built them for this purpose, and not for students to make out and whatnot.) When we finally got a room and I let him kiss me, he told me I was “trying too hard.” It’s funny because I literally sat there and didn’t try at all. I guess that was part of the problem. That, and the fact that he couldn’t kiss for beans. First-year of college in a nutshell right there.

2. So we weren't hooking up, but we also weren't dating.

I thought we were dating. I’m not sure what he thought we were doing, but apparently we weren’t on the same page. He decided to “dump” me after he realized I had told someone we were a thing. We pretended the decision was mutual.

3. My high school ex and I both ended up going to the Claremont Colleges.

When I was in high school, I only dated one person. He wanted us to attend the Claremont Colleges together even though I wasn’t planning to apply. Of course, it’s only after we broke up that I chose Scripps and he ended up at Pitzer.

4. Getting sexiled in college is nothing new, but I went one better and got sexiled at a business conference over winter break.

Now that I think about it, I think this was the one and only time I was ever sexiled. I guess that’s a pretty good statistic in the grand scheme of things, right?

5. Last semester, I dated a grad student.

He seemed calm and collected on the surface but was extremely intense and clingy in reality. He told me loved me after only three weeks of dating, and then promptly dumped me in tears. The whole affair was such a whirlwind, I’m still confused about what happened.

6. Out of the five schools in the consortium where I study, I haven't found a single person to date.

This would be fine, except for issues of transportation and long distance--kind of annoying. But seriously, what the heck is wrong with me if I can’t find someone to date from a pool of five different colleges? Here’s hoping I’ll maybe get half credit for dating a KGI student. (*The 5 C's refer to the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five undergraduate colleges arranged Tetris-style in Claremont, California.)

7. Over the most recent winter break, I hosted my hookup's ex-girlfriend at my apartment.

I offered her a place to sleep so she could visit her friends in Claremont. Oh, and did I mention her ex-boyfriend was staying over too? Now I know what people mean when they say, “three’s a crowd.”

8. At some point, I decided to act like the average college student and fall for my hookup.

But it wasn’t until after he expressed interest in my roommate that I confessed how I felt-- angrily, and over text. Suffice to say, I’m kind of relieved he already graduated.

9. One can always expect an awkward story about the morning after.

But it’s only this one time that someone stayed around to soothe my period cramps. This sounds awfully sweet until you realize his way of helping was to use a tuning fork on me. I'm not talking about a kinky sex toy. I'm talking about a tool used in somatic healing, which is an actual thing that exists. Consent would have been nice, though.

10. The summer before my junior year of college, I temporarily moved in with my crush before school started.

We actually started dating because of this incident. Moral of the story: the next time you’re in love with someone, get them to fall for you by moving in with them.

11. Without planning to, I ended up hooking up with someone with whom I went to elementary school.

I guess playground games look a little different in college.