Trust me, I’m not here to glamorize having a boyfriend or to make the single ladies feel bad. And believe me, I did NOT come to college for my MRS. degree. Quite the opposite, actually. I just feel that us long-term girlfriends seem to be a minority in college, and I’m here to give them a voice.

For one thing, having a college relationship is far from easy. My boyfriend, Matt, and I have been together for almost 2 years. There have been fights, sex droughts, upset friends, and jealous exes. But we’ve gone through a lot and I’m proud to say that he’s the one for me.

Sometimes I feel like I’m too young for this; like when I find out he’s been calling his mom to try to get his grandmother’s engagement ring and I’m on my couch watching reruns of Run’s House. Other times, I feel a million times older than my friends when I say I’m staying in to bake a casserole. But putting all that aside, what keeps me happy is knowing that we’re going to get through the tough stuff of our 20s together.

And there’s nothing wrong with finding your man in college. Despite being called a “disgrace to feminists everywhere” just because I’m not ashamed to admit that I love my boyfriend and will make decisions with him in mind,  I don’t see our relationship as “setting me back decades.” I invest heavily into my future career and have my own personal life with friends IN ADDITION  to making my man as happy as I can. Just for the record, I DO go out with my girlfriends on a regular basis, I DO take part in many on-campus activities, and I DO consider myself to be a very independent woman.

So, for as long as I have stories to tell, I will share my experiences with you all, because I know there are many of you who can relate with the ups, the downs and the changes that come in a long term relationship.

For you non-believers and nay- sayers, you can see that it really is possible to make it work!

Even though it’s still the summer, my best friends and I have started talk of what to do for spring break. We were thinking of more people to invite and I brought the request up to my current boyfriend.

“If we’re still together by March, would you want to come to Mexico with us?” I asked.

“What do you mean ‘if’?” he replied. “Are you saying you think we’ll break up in the next few months?”

This exchange of words was followed by a rather long argument in which he thought I was being mean and I thought he was being unreasonable. I mean, if you’ve only been going out for 5 months, how far in advance should you really plan? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve planned parts of relationships before but they’ve never quite turned out the way I wanted.

The only long-term relationship I’ve ever had was with a guy who was my first boyfriend, first kiss, first everything basically, and I thought it was one of those “Oh, we’re going to be together forever” type deals. We were so ‘serious’ we had even talked about baby names (I cringe even typing that). Fast forward a year and a half later and we had broken up because I had finally realized what a jealous control freak he was. Not exactly the “forever” scene I had thought of. But I’ll chalk that one up to being 15 and dumb.

But then my last relationship consisted of me buying a Christmas present for my boyfriend three weeks in advance, assuming of course that we would still be together by that day. To my surprise, he dumped me two weeks before Christmas and I was left with tears and a pair of non-refundable gauge earrings. Not to mention I felt completely stupid for thinking we could keep our relationship intact for a few oncoming weeks.

So after all of that, I am definitely hesitant to think more then a few days in advance. Who knows how things will go tomorrow with the boyfriend let alone seven months from now? But is it better to be safe then sorry when in a relationship?

Or should we all just toss our doubts to hell and plan our honeymoon with the guy we’ve been dating for a couple months?

[photo from jupiterimages]