MURKY WATERS IN PARADISE: COLLEGE RELATIONSHIPS

They are the grandest, brightest, loveliest idea of relationships! What hath ye to say if thou have not tasted love in college?

In truth, a love relationship between regular collegians is usually anchored on the strong pillars of deceptive chivalry by the man, and simulated innocence by the lady. You reckon innocence in the 21st century is such a rare thing, huh.

So the parties will often exhibit personality far removed from their real self. It’s the way to go.

Every average student has been involved in a relationship at some point during their time in college. Prove me wrong. By show of hands. See? No one. Whether it materialised or otherwise notwithstanding. 

In fact, a good number of souls have their maiden love stories penned when their feet first touch college.

With tonnes of curiosity muffled in pitiful naivety, they plunge headlong into the dangerous ditch we like to call love. Few fancy recollecting their first relationship experiences, for they are absolute hell.

I won’t mind being branded Sir Chauvinist, but, mostly damsels will approach the normally slippery and cobblestone-lined path of love with the innocence and humility of a nun shot with a crossbow from the heart of a convent.

More heartrending is if the poor girl hails from a family of the strictly devout religious stock. Poor thing will love with all the power of loving, for it is the first time she’s breaking free from the chains of parental monitoring.

If a typhoon sweeps by, the heartbreak often exceeds anything in all the quantitative parameters. 

What pity!

Most of these do not last half a semester. Then, the lifelong curiosity has been cruelly terminated, and innocence stolen. Call it the university. It is the place where one gets weaned on all a fronts. You cut teeth for the package of all the intricacies that life presents.

Nonetheless, some are rosy to recall, depending on the variables.

If a campus relationship manages to weather the test of time, boredom, the incredible tempest of financial constraints, the temptation of infidelity –which, in college, is more overwhelming than that of opening the Pandora’s Box – it can survive anywhere.

For the parties involved, embarking on planning for their nuptials already won’t be too ambitious an enterprise, dare I declare.

Some really pretty and worthy ladies and gentlemen –I have the discretion to call them thus, albeit this once – have a hankering after invalids of the opposite members for lovers. You cannot talk them out of this. It’s a concept most intriguing, and which has always spectacularly eluded the grasp of my intellect. Am not alone in this, I bet?

Favours

Every so often, one needs a favour of some sort; a novel, the laptop to type an assignment (read to watch movies) financial, with the term paper. Just anything. A favour is not a bad idea. Even two. Once in a while. People in a relationship are responsible for each other, aren’t they? But too many requests for favours all the times is exploitation.

Dating friends

This is a territory no person worth their dignity should venture into. You hear me? Good. 

If you are a man and you have your eyes on girls who are buddies, brother, you are on a losing wicket. You don’t need to date both of them. Nuh. But it’s equally perilous to court either with the other’s knowledge.

There will usually be one of this three agendas:

First, the other girl doesn’t care a rapt into which goddamned lake the relationship will drain. She is after your money. Yes, money. She will ‘eat’ along for as long as you provide for the other girl.

Secondly, she plainly hates you, and will strive to do anything to catalyse the apocalypse of your love thing. Pure malice.

Thirdly, she also loves you, somewhat. She intends to have you in secret. Together, you will steal the first lady’s love. Soon, your girl will learn of it. Them of the female kind are keener than the gods, beware. That’s where the rubber meets the road. You bust, what else?

Shockingly, the two will engage in a squabble, but will be friends again before the dust has completely settled. They will laugh you off, and life will have to continue. Tragic. Who’s the loser?

Materialism and college love

Meet the college materialists. These, naturally, are members of the sisterhood. They are the true disciples of the Marxist theory. For this breed, they make it clear right from the onset: 

"If you cannot support my lifestyle, stop trying, honey." It’s that simple.

Like in tendering, their love is for the highest bidder.

Ideally, in most campus relationships, the hassle is normally on the male divide. The university is another wilderness where muscle, dexterity and agility rule. They are the precepts.

This is how:

To gamble for the sunniest chic campus has to offer, the dude must have bottomless pockets. Imperative. And be of stunning looks. Oh, yes, really stunning. And of huge biceps! Members of the female kind like to be protected. Literally. And only alpha men are capable of protecting themselves, and others.

For those of us who are skinny and with wobbly balances and checks, although not so homely, throwing the hat into the ring in such a highpower contest is a futile endeavour. We stand no snowball’s chance in hell.

There are those who feed in this man’s house, and proceed to another man’s hostel room. I once had a friend who would invite for supper and prepare the nicest delectables –the budget of a collegian can permit –for his love interest. 

Once she was full, she would excuse herself to go to her room, only to sneak into another dude’s room. For the whole night! Mercy!

I overheard another lady openly dismiss a guy who had tried to hit on her:

“A campus bed is too small for me, sir. I sleep in mammoth beds.” 

If you’re still grappling with the semantics of that cavalier statement, it bore all the connotations of insatiable materialism.

Surprisingly, love does not have to be an element in the relationship equation. It’s penny and pleasure, as they put it. Without the former, the latter is a flight of fancy.

Cheaters

Infidels exist everywhere. But no breed of cheaters can hold a candle to the college crop of cheaters. These usually have mastered the abominable art in a gut-wringing scale.

Like in the jungle, all animals here drink from the same pool. Some rough beasts will drink from inside the pool, while others are without a hint of manners that they soil the water after they have drunken. Guess you are racking your brain to break that down. Sorry.

It is possible to have several lovers across campus, without the slightest detection on the part of their lovers. For such folk, men and women alike, they roam through the university with gay abandon.

Woe unto those who commit upon them their full emotions and trust! Free counsel for them: heartbreaks are real in this world. It happens that the moment a lover has turned away from you, however slightly, repeat, however slightly, it is the sad end of the romp.

If your love is seeing someone else behind your back, or openly, that marks the watershed of your relationship’s waterloo. The die is cast, and, often, there will be nothing you can do to salvage the relationship.

Such is college and relationships.