Kyle's Guide to College Relationships
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU OH GOD I CAN'T TAKE GIRLS YELLING AT ME
written by Kyle on April 18, 2025

“Internet writing” generally fits snugly into three categories: writing about things you remember from childhood, writing about how much you hate everything (subcategory: writing about how you’re smugly chuckling because people sent you angry, horrible-grammar-ridden emails on account of you dislike something they like), and writing about college.  Seeing as I’ve already written myself into a corner by writing an article about how much I hate writing about things from childhood, it’s time to tackle the third category, after which I can withdraw from this world, only to rise again in a century to write about how much I dislike Myspace, which will have become its own sovereign nation.

Yes, I’m writing about a college experience.  But not just any college experience; I’m providing you the reader with a guide to maintaining your very own college relationship.  The college relationship is a curious one, more involved than a high school relationship, more intense than an adult relationship, and less mature than either.  It is a relationship founded upon ambivalence and, in retrospect, deep shame.  The perfect cultivation and realization of that shame is a skill that requires much practice, but with a little guidance, you should be well on your way.  So let’s get started!

I’ll begin by addressing the men.  Ladies, feel free to read on for some pointers, but never fear; your guide is just a few paragraphs down the page.

The first step is to find a girl.  There is a temptation here to go out socializing until you find someone with whom you share many common interests and would like to ask out on a date, leading to a healthy, fruitful relationship.  Don’t give in to this temptation.  You should immediately fall madly in love with the first girl you see, ideally someone deeply entrenched in your limited first year social circle.  The girl who likes your best friend, your roommate’s sister, your sister’s roommate, even your mate’s roomsister are all fair play here.  The key is to alienate as many people as possible once you two start dating and to create as much fallout as possible upon the inevitable breakup.  We learn from our mistakes, so if your whole relationship is a mistake, it’s like super-learning!

Now that you’ve found a girl, it’s time for a grand romantic gesture to let her know how you feel, right?  Wrong, Charlie!  That’ll make you seem creepy and desperate.  Instead, create an elaborate fantasy world wherein you do so.  Since it’s in your imagination, the sky’s the limit: take her on a balloon ride around the world, at one point taking a bullet for her when a mad count tries to kill her for vague reasons; write the album Grace about her (in your fantasy, Jeff Buckley never existed!) and then reveal your feelings with a virtuoso performance in front of a packed audience, at the end of which, you will take a bullet for her when a crazed fan tries to kill her to steal your affections away; take a bullet for her when a smelly hobo tries to shoot her with a blue gun.  All that matters is that your romantic gesture is elaborate and involves you sacrificing yourself to reveal your eternal love for her.  She will be so moved and so unable to love another man that she’ll become a nun.  In real life, I dunno, take her to the Olive Garden.

YOUR FACE HERE

So you’ve gone on your first date.  Unlimited breadsticks and you covered the bill, too.  You’re flying high.  It’s time to seal the deal with a kiss.  Wrong, you’re too much of a pussy.  What if she just went out on the date as an elaborate dare with her friends?  No, it’s time to lean in and hug her, ideally making an awkward reference to the hug as you do so.  Kissing will have to wait until you are drunk at a party or just before you’ve had a conversation about how you two don’t like labels and besides, what you have is deeper than “boyfriend and girlfriend.”

But let’s jump ahead to once you’ve finally planted that smooch, tiger.  You two are now official; jump the broom, stomp the crystal, and throw your watch in the sea.  You’ve got a girlfriend!  Now it’s time to begin fucking everything up.  You’ve been dating for a few weeks.  You should be having sex.  A lot of sex.  This is the yang.  Every other aspect of your trainwreck of a relationship is the yin.  So let’s start yinning!

First you must start with the baby talk and public displays of affection.  Come up with pet names for each other and leave coy references to one another in your profile of your Internet instant messaging service of choice.  Put your arm around her always.  Make out at the grocery store.  Have sex in your professors’ offices during office hours.  All this may seem uncomfortable or out of character for you, but it’s a necessary step towards making yourself incredibly vulnerable so that you can become that much more regretful and embarrassed about your relationship once you break up.

Habitat For Humanity project or a good place for a beej?

The next step is to become extremely, irrationally jealous.  Her ex from high school sends her an email to tell her he’s getting married?  Beat him up.  Her male best friend sends her a “raunchy” birthday present?  Beat him up.  Her brother with cystic fibrosis wants one last hospital visit from his sister before he succumbs?  Beat him up, the faker.  Every guy is a potential threat, and the more jealous you get, the more doubts she will have about the relationship.  You’ve got her right where you want her.

Now that you’re alternating between sickening cutesiness and Othellian levels of irrational jealousy, it’s time for the pre-breakup period.  She’s busy on weekends.  She has lots of work to do.  No need for tea leaves or animal entrails; your fate is sealed.  After a couple weeks of this, it’s time for the talk.

She dumped you.  Your friends want you to come hang out, go drinking with them, and above all, forget about her.  DO NOT DO THIS!  You must instead lie on your floor without moving for days at a time.  Don’t eat.  Listen to Beck’s Sea Change on repeat.  Once you do start eating again, eat junk food.  You don’t want to be attractive to other girls; she was the one for you.  Eat a one-pound bag of Wild Berry Skittles for dinner, followed by a forty of Olde English for dessert.  It’s time for the downward spiral, chief.  

Hope you like triangles and circles!

Repeat the spiraling process for about a month.  What’s this?  You’re over her?  Perfect.  Time for a rebound relationship.  Science has shown that the only college students without an unhealthy degree of narcissism are the ones who commit suicide in their undecorated dorm rooms.  So get out there and start looking in mirrors a lot more!  If you’re ugly, use that to your narcissism’s advantage; incessantly complain to friends about how no one will love you and make sure they feel very sorry for you.  This narcissism will be extremely important shortly—you want to make sure that you don’t give a shit about your rebound girl’s feelings, because you are an asshole.  Which is why you break it off after a few sex-filled weeks because you “don’t want to be attached to anyone right now.”

And thus the college relationship cycle is complete.  Congratulations!  You’re that much closer to actually being a grownup about relationships.

So now that you fellas have some idea of how to handle a college girlfriend, it’s time to lay some wisdom on the ladies.  Take notes because I never repeat myself:

The first step is to find a boyfriend.  This is becoming more difficult these days because guys are unmotivated idiots and are skipping higher education in unprecedented numbers to move straight into high-profile careers in food service and other food-related industries, so snatch one up quick!

Now that you’ve got a guy, wait for him to be romantic.  Keep waiting.  He is somehow too insensitive to think of anything genuinely romantic to do and too insecure to think that anything he could do would please you.  This is the ideal college boyfriend: a boorish pussy.

Likewise, wait for him to kiss you.  It will either be sloppy and taste like stale beer and Camel Lights or you will have to initiate it.  But no matter; now you’re “goin’ steady!”  Time to let the shame and regret roll in!

Introduce him to your friends and family.  They think he’s cute!  No, they’re not humoring you!  What a catch!  If Gramma Marie was just fifty years younger…!  Pray to whatever god you have that he does not put his patented homophobic/misogynistic/vaguely racist humor to use in front of your friends.  If he does, laugh uncomfortably as if he is being ironic.  “Black people too loud in the mall,” get outta here, ya silly nut!

prince charming lol

Now that he’s passed the friend test, it’s time for the relationship to start sputtering.  The beauty of this step is that you don’t have to do a thing!  He’ll start getting jealous and controlling all on his own!  A night out with the girls?  Be prepared for an hour of passive-aggressive interrogation when you get back!  Let this go on for a few weeks hoping that he will change or that you can change him.  You cannot.  Dump him.

So now you two are broken up.  Congratulations!  The cycle is complete: you are too scarred by your horrible relationship to want anything to do with dudes or commitment for a good two years or so.

So what is it about the college girlfriend/boyfriend dynamic that keeps bringing us back?  People are idiots.  Lonely, lonely idiots.

See you in a century, gang!