Love. Holding hands. Butterflies in your stomach. It all sounds perfectly wonderful, right?
Well, I wouldn’t know, and I’m sure many other college students wouldn’t either! As a first-year, I’ve already observed lots of hand-holding and double-scooter riding, and heard stories so intimate they must not be shared. Coming from an all-girls high school, I never really thought about my love life, and honestly, I’m kind of terrifyingly amazed by how many of my classmates now so readily embrace romance.
Relationships can quickly become messy, and despite gaining more experience as we grow older, we’re often left more hurt and confused. Romance is everywhere — it occupies many of our minds; it is the focus of the movies we watch; it fills our TikTok feeds. It’s comforting to think that there’s someone destined for us; it’s even more exciting to believe that that special someone is waiting a couple of doors down the hall.
But how do we reach that lovey-dovey state of bliss? We can daydream about that stranger we made eye contact with once in the dining hall, but it’s all the more difficult to open ourselves up and trade in bits and pieces of who we are.
“As a first-year, I’ve already observed lots of hand-holding and double-scooter riding, and heard stories so intimate they must not be shared.”
Anjie, a three-year employee at Malott, says she noticed that many students enjoy “playing the field” and encourages them to “be willing to open themselves up to vulnerability.”
But what does being vulnerable entail? How do we gain the confidence to place ourselves in vulnerable positions without expecting validation from someone else? We daydream about those Disney movies where the love interest pursues us first, not the other way around.
In my first-year seminar at Pomona College, “In Dependence,” we learned about the three modes of being in a relationship: separation, fusion and differentiation. Separation occurs when people separate from others to preserve their individuality. Fusion is the other extreme, people trading their individuality for connection and fusing their identity to another as the “self-in-relationship.” Differentiation means preserving your sense of self while maintaining close connection: the key to healthy relationships.
When I first learned about this, I thought, “How are we supposed to have differentiation when others have previously defined our identity?” Conversely, if we start separated, it can feel scary to give some of ourselves up to another — to be vulnerable. Are we supposed to share all of ourselves with this one person in order to deem them our soulmate?
In a world that screams at us, “Just be yourself, and you’ll find the people that like you!” it’s challenging to figure out who we want to, should and can be, and what parts of ourselves to change just because we like someone.
I’m reminded of something one of my roommates mentioned the other day. We were sitting at our desks late at night, trying to finish up some homework, when she suddenly announced that she was going to start opening herself up to making genuine connections with others rather than continuing to engage in a series of meaningless hookups.
“I don’t know if I should,” she admitted. “It’s hard to explain…I feel like I’m trying to be okay with turning on the ‘emotional switch.’”
I still don’t know very much about love or human connection in general. At some point, I think we’ve got to feel okay knowing that no one has any idea about what to do or how to feel. We have to trust that no one has the exact formula for how to fall in love, and nobody can even be certain that we should.
I only know that everyone I spoke with suggested that you’ve got to try. Even if you’re not actively seeking intimacy, you sometimes need to place yourself in vulnerable positions, turn on that emotional switch and allow yourself to feel lonely and disappointed to have the opportunity for any connection. As my hometown friend texted me right as I was boarding the plane headed to Claremont, “Really, actually try the hardest you ever have.”
Ellie Chi PO ’28 is from Columbia, Maryland. Her New Year’s resolution is always to be more honest, and she honestly really enjoys reading “The Catcher in the Rye.”
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