How to make your campus love work

Campus relationships have been going on for ages but the challenges are still the same. 

Being a student, however, offers it’s own unique set of challenges. Some of these challenges involve feeling overwhelmed by the amount of freedom that living on your own has to offer, such as the freedom to date without parental restrictions and the availability of alcohol at college parties among others. 

Many campuses are in fact microcosms of larger cities and operate fully without much support from the outside. Although the campus may operate as a functional city, the size of the campus makes it equally comparable to a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Recognizing these challenges and formulating strategies on how to deal with them will help make the dating scene more manageable for campus students.

For many students, university is their first experience of living on their own. This may tempt many to go wild and reckless within the first year. Campus seniors are well versed in the hook ups.

Freshmen however, are usually a bit more reluctant to leave traditional dating behind. When it comes to the definition of dating in campus, hooking up is typically much more common. Casual relationships without commitment are what most guys and girls are looking for. It’s all about being free to move on whenever you please. It is an illusion that has become a norm but be warned: a regular hookup doesn’t mean professing your love for one another.

Girls in particular often expect their hookups to turn into something more – but a hookup is typically nothing more than a no-strings-attached agreement. If you’re looking for a serious relationship, make sure you have the guiding tenets or principles, the untold doctrines of love.

Those who maintain a mature attitude about dating are likely to find more meaningful relationships than those who believe that the freedom of living on their own affords them the ability to engage in reckless activity and seek out short-term relationships that are shallow and unfulfilling. Those who are tempted by the lure of the freedom often burn out quickly and return to a more conservative attitude about dating.

For some this phase teaches them the types of relationships that are not worthywhile. Others may learn their lesson in a harsher way through either contracting a sexually transmitted disease or enduring an unplanned pregnancy, some even loose their ability to conceive but some on a more worse contract HIV/AIDS.

It is important to remember that your academic obligations should remain your number one priority while you are in campus. Relationships are a necessary part of your social development but upon graduation, it will be your grades that determine your ease in finding a job. Prospective employers will be far more interested in your academic success than they are in your social development and achievements in terms of relationships.

Focusing the majority of your attention to your schoolwork, while still allowing time for social activities will make you a very well rounded individual. A very important piece of advice for college students is to remember that campus is relatively small. In the real world, your dating failures are unlikely to have an effect on your future dates but on a campus, where gossip runs rampant, rumors can spread quickly. For example if you do something mean or unethical to one girl, it can be literally only a matter of minutes before word spreads through her entire hostel that you can’t be trusted. Also, infidelities are very difficult to hide in a campus situation. With so many opportunities for students to interact on a social level, it is very unlikely that you would be able to get away with seeing more than one person at a time. 

The relationships that you form during your college years can be wonderful learning experiences. But loving deeply and honestly goes beyond the ordinary parameters of predetermined relationships, long ago when our past parents in our lineages would sit down a child, in that case anyone who is considered a first generation of parents and guide on the pathway to successful future.

But here we are now in the most complex and dynamic world, dating scenes are getting alot murky, not because it's advancing but because we are outliving the basic establishments of dating. It is paramount to note a few things on how we can best navigate the torturous relationships. One of the key elements is honesty and removing all the skeletons from the closet.

In some instances, prospective partners get apprehensive of each other, concealing very crucial information that would otherwise shape the desired objective of both. 

Having a shared objective may go along way in keeping your dreams alive, it would be a disaster if it happens today that you are in a relationship without focus or direction. Ideally, the choice of life is a sole responsibility of a single person, you can only design your destiny, but an overriding principle to making in life is getting into a relationship with an open mind, that can assess the merits of staying in it, a mind that can evaluate the progress in terms of your set objectives.

So basically, i am saying, going into union calls for a broad mindset. it doesn't have to be that you get imprisoned or captive of an abusive or degrading relationship, life is not a rehearsal, it has no second chance, once it messes, it reverberates forever.

Reading through Ben Carson’s book BIG PICTURE, he enumerates various things of what being nice doesn’t mean, that being nice doesn't mean letting yourself be hurt or taken advantage of, being nice doesn’t mean always agreeing with others and being nice certainly doesn't mean compromising your standards.

I am writing this because i have friends too, i know everyone goes through a cycle of transformative age, but the counsel here is, you are a good person, don’t be taken advantage of, don’t compromise your basic foundations of progressive life, there is a future that lies ahead of you, infact a bright future. Just as i mentioned earlier, you are away from your immediate people or parents, your freedom should not make you digress from your core intents and get into trouble.

It is profitable to have a successful relationship, infact very healthy, but know what? its more profitable to excel in your academic pursuits, that can assure you of the desired destiny.

Again Ben Carson continues, "you may think that once i begin to glimpse my own potential and what the future could hold, that life would be good to me and i would just zoom right to the top. Wrong!

   "i had another problem. When i got to high school, i ran into perhaps the worst thing a young person can encounter. It's called peers. Negative peers. P-E-E-R-S. That stands for People who Encourage Errors, Rudeness and Stupidity. and that is exactly what they did".

I find the comment very real, that’s absolutely what destroys our preferred future, our dreams. It's not that we intent but our morals get eroded bit by bit, chipping away without our notice, we get drifting further and further  from our desired goals, well peer influence logically has massive influence, but then what do you find better so that your social standing remains firm?

Relationship built along the lines of peer influence suffer irreparable damages, the outcome has previously led to suicide, depression, withdrawal, dejection, seclusion or low self esteem but as a campus students, you have the obligation to yourself, well campus life is much liberal, you can decide what you wish to do or be but the future awaits you, are you carrying the fame or shame?

Finally, avoiding the abuse of alcohol is very important in a campus-dating situation. Many campus parties prominently feature alcohol on the drink menu and overindulging in alcohol can have the result of weakening your reasoning skills as well as your inhibitions.

For this reason, it is advisable that you limit your alcohol consumption to a reasonable amount that does not result in inebriation. It is also important to recognize that other guests of the party may not be following your example of not indulging. This makes it necessary to guard against unwelcomed advances by fellow campus students who are feeling the effects of reduced inhibitions.

Dating during university years has it’s own unique challenges. These challenges relate to the newfound freedom that many college students experience when they venture out on their own. Additional challenges relate to the relatively small size of a college campus as well as challenges of maintaining a balance of academic and social activities.

I am always fascinated when i share out my thoughts with my fellow youths, it gives me the encouragement to say, you can make it, you are a nice person, and that the society needs your potential. It's not a passive element but a real one, seeking out to always be always number one. The joy of seeing a successful friend in all the spheres of life, you are that friend i yearn, the horizons should bear us witness that we made humanity a common factor.

Finally, loving deeply and honestly is a choice, to fulfill or to not. There is always a dream, and dream is made real when you have woken up and persued.