The Dilemma With College Relationships

In my eighth grade, there were tons of people who were in a relationship with each other, and that was actually quite astonishing being that there were only 50 students in my grade. I soon came to realize how many of these people genuinely seem to have little to no idea on how a relationship works. I can not rightfully speak about how to be an ideal boyfriend or anything but I can have knowledge on the things that people should not do. From my experience, there was a new girl in our grade and after a month she dated this one guy. The teenage life is complicated yet questionable. The guy simply asked the new girl to date her, as a joke, and the girl actually accepted it. Of course, this was absurd and I was completely dubious of their relationship as the guy just didn’t seem to have true feelings for the girl and vice versa. The guy simply did it out of the pleasure of having a girlfriend and seeming part of the teen culture of dating. Two weeks after dating, the couple decided to break up and it seemed normal and both really had any regret about the breakup since both had

Lapses in communication are something everyone has had personal experience with. While reading, a previous relationship kept popping into my head. As Tannen wrote about some of the communication issues in her marriage, I couldn’t stop myself from drawing parallels between our former relationships. The

Across the U.S. college students on a variety of campuses have part taken in what is commonly known as the “hookup culture.” The hookup culture does not always have to include sexual intercourse although it most often does, but it is merely the idea of having physical pleasure with another person outside of an emotional relationship. College students, even at some of America’s most prestigious colleges realize hooking up has completely overthrown the idea of being in an actual relationship. Emily Foxhall a Yale student wrote an article for the Yale Daily News in 2010 stating that the hookup culture is so prevalent on Yale’s campus because students have enough stress to worry about, casual hookups are easy (Foxhall, 2010). The question becomes, is the college hookup culture vital and normal to the college experience or should it be condemned for being harmful to college age persons mentality.

The reading that interested me most was “The Decline of the Date and the Rise of the College Hook Up” by Paula England and Rueben J. Thomas. The initial motive for this research was that an undergraduate student of England’s “wanted to do a research paper on why students on campus didn’t date much anymore” (pg 69). The two researchers, England and Thomas, then began questioning students on Stanford University’s campus about what they thought about the increasing occurrence of hook ups as compared to going out on dates.

In We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider “The Czar’s Daughter” and “Averted Vision,” both exchanges about only accepting certain details’ in a relationship and accepting what you want to see. I don’t agree with Tim Kreider seeing only part of what is going on is harmful for a relationship to grow any further than where it stand at that moment in time. Seeing the full reality of a situation help us living our lives, pushes us to reach our full potential in a relationship. When somebody only tells you parts of the details, what they are doing is hiding secrets behind their partner. Tim Kreider said “It turns out that when there is some conspicuous gap or contradiction at the center of someone’s existences, there is probably a very specific, obvious reason for it, and the reason you’re avoiding confronting it directly is that it’s something you don’t want to know” (Kreider, 2012, p.36). Ultimately, one needs to accept the situation to be with that person in a relationship or confront the situation with a chance of losing them. The quality of a relationship and where it goes is determined by our growing action to grow together closer to that individual. Having that support and strength to overcome any obstacle that life will throw at one is easier in an honest and respectable relationship.

England focuses on what students define as relationships and what is most come on the college campus. Most students are involved in hookups and are not really looking for relationships. In this article she begins by explaining what the “traditional date” used to mean. Through surveying and interviewing college students at Stanford University she realizes that most students are interested in hookups rather than going on a date or getting into a relationship. The students feel

Karin Agness’s article answers both questions, “Are Hookups Killing College Romance”? originally published on the Townhall website on March 2, 2009, president of the Network of Enlightened Women argues that hookups are overwhelmingly disturbing college couples. Agness explains the discouragement that the hookup culture and all that the attention it has gained on college campuses, she goes on to describe how much it negatively affects college couples and their relationships on campus. About eighty percent of undergraduates have had a hookup states Agness (para. 2). Agness central point is that the hookup culture is becoming more popular among college students. Based

How would you define a healthy relationship? One filled with lies or one with an abundance of truth. In American society, each relationship has its own opinion of what defines a loving relationship. In the essay, “Good Lovers Lie” author Clancy Martin believes that “ When it comes to love, both honesty and deception should be practiced in moderation…love is a greater good than the truth.” Meaning that a relationship shouldn’t be defined on impractical expectations about the truth. Specific good lies can benefit a relationship and can help it get from one day to the next. While some believe that lying all the time can hurt a relationship, lying for well being of love can help the relationship thrive from day to day.

Therefore, just like the coming together stages of a relationship there are five stages to coming apart. The first sign of a relationship coming to an end is Differentiating, meaning the couple’s commonalities and differences are affecting them. In the course of this stage, the impetus of “working together” stance instantly move from “couple” to “individualistic”. Temporary estrangement become a solution. For that reason, the relationship shifts rapidly from differences to setting boundaries on the couple’s interaction. This is called the Circumscribing stage, which means to know everything you need to know about your partner but you avoid it by going around the problem. It is like saying your partner isn’t sincere so you avoid the problem and not sort it out which includes less communication.

College and universities have made great strides over the years. The campuses have grown, and the resources have improved tremendously. However, it is questionable if that social scene on these campuses has changed for the better over the years. “Work hard, party hard” has become the motto of college students to live by. Students spend the week focused on their academics, striving to grow as intellects. However, the weekend becomes the time when students look to go out and socialize at the various parties. And this is exactly what the weekend is for. With growing causal party scenes, college students have been more inclined to have a casual relationship with the opposite sex. Traditional dating on college campuses is rarely seen anymore

In the first chapter of her book, You Just Don't Understand, Men and Women in Conversation, Deborah Tannen quotes, "...studies have shown that married couples that live together spend less than half an hour a week talking to each other...". (24) This book is a wonderful tool for couples to use for help in understanding each other. The two things it stresses most is to listen, and to make yourself heard. This book opened my eyes to the relationship I am in now, with a wonderful person, for about four years. It made me realize that most of our little squabble-like fights could have been avoided, if one or the other of us could sit down and

People often do not have good communication with people they are close to although they believe that they do. Even married couples can communicate like strangers. Boaz Keysar reveals that people over-estimate their relationships with other people and they take the communication for granted. They are biased and can’t make a good judgment of the level of closeness of their communication.

When looking into the Drapers relationship, for an example, it's obvious that the relationship isn’t quite perfect. From the outside, people may assume that is the case

A Prominent saying state – “Good Communication is the key to a healthy relationship or marriage”; whether it may be verbal or non-verbal. Many marriages end up in divorce, because of neglecting to communicate

It was found that one hundred percent of the fifty male participants surveyed agreed that dating in college provides benefits. It was also shown that males who dated while in college get a higher level of self-esteem through social interaction. Dating provided them constant interaction with students of the opposite sex. The research mainly focused on the benefits of these relationships in college as it related to the individuals self esteem and interaction while in social settings. An individual’s social skills are being developed throughout