The Value of Irreconcilable Love

By: Destine Manson

College is a time of exploration and growth. A big part of that is understanding what kind of love you respond well to, whether romantic or platonically friendly relationships. Each teaches us something different about the type of personalities we love and the ones we love we would instead do without.

When the lines between friendship and love begin to blur, we often (at least I know I do) immediately feel a rush of panic. A decision has to immediately be made. Do I let the person know I want more than a friendship? As a 20-something who still has had only one really serious relationship, I find that more often than not, I mistake strong feelings of friendship for a relationship.

There was the guy in my french class. He always showed up late. Every class, he looked like he came to the class straight from the gym. I had only heard bad things about the guys on the wrestling team, but that didn’t matter to me much. Something was intriguing, I thought, about his lackadaisical drawl when he talked and how massive his hands were. In other words, don’t judge me. I was only a freshman. When he leaned over to ask me to translate what the professor was saying in every class, I knew we were in love. The jokes he told kept me awake during class after long nights. He only asked me because he thought I was cute and not because he had already missed 75% of the lecture.

Then there was the RA who lived two floors below me during my sophomore year. I first met him through a mutual friend who lived in the dorm. We were all very close, living in the dorm building notorious for having NYU’s tiniest rooms. We bonded over the only space that wasn’t shoulder to shoulder in the basement lounges. When my friend wasn’t around, he started sitting with me individually. We talked about the similarities of our upbringings despite him growing up in Queens, New York, and my upbringing thousands of miles away in Atlanta, Georgia. I looked forward to seeing him pass by in the halls during my study breaks. Then the pandemic happened. I never got his number, assuming we would cross paths in the basement for a few more weeks before the pandemic uprooted college life as I knew it. With him being a senior that year, our connection was lost forever.

My junior year of college was the first time I had been single since my last relationship. I had been dating the same guy since I was 16 years old up until then. After a while of us being broken up, I found myself being highly attentive to the interactions with guys my age around me. Previously, my blinding infatuation with my ex led me to ignore any thoughts of seeing any other guys romantically. As I made more time in my schedule for friends, I found myself constantly wondering about the romantic connections I might have missed out on while being consumed in my five-year long-distance relationship.

I knew I always felt a little nervous around this one friend who I met in my freshman year, but I became closer with him towards the end of my sophomore year. We always seemed to gravitate towards each other when possible during club events. When our hands would brush by accident or stare at each other a little too long, I felt my cheeks burning. But I had always been in a relationship. I dismissed my feelings as being my anxiety flaring or just a natural attraction to someone I thought was overall just a fantastic person.

Let’s call him Jim. Jim was the life of the party but had never dated anyone seriously while we were in school. Jim and I talked about relationships a lot when we were together.

I already knew from our many conversations that I was not his type. He wanted to date a girl who was “mature” about life. I was telling him about my plans to get a new tattoo impulsively. He wanted a girl he could bring home to his parents who were first-generation immigrants. I barely made it through the two years of Spanish I took to fulfill my foreign language requirement. Still, the more we hung out alone, the more I found my feelings burning brighter. I was always excited to see him, no matter what else I had planned for the week.

Anytime I asked him to hang out, he would make time for it despite having a busy schedule. This was something I had to beg my ex for. Friends had been telling me for years how I needed to set higher standards for myself. Compared to any other guy I was interested in before, Jim was perfect...at least that’s what I thought in my head. He was hard-working and valued being independent. He could cook. I could not. He seemed to want more out of a relationship than just the physical.

Still, I knew he wasn’t interested.

On one drunken night, I came dangerously close to spilling the beans. I drunk texted him as I took the train back to my apartment from a party. I asked him if I could ask him an “important question.” Before he could respond, I lost signal on my phone. When my signal came back, so did my consciousness in the perfect moment.

“Nevermind actually,” I texted.

Today, I’m grateful that I never sent that text. I realized that all of those romances that lived in my head throughout my time in college served a purpose, even if they didn’t amount to anything. I learned exactly how I wanted to be treated in my next relationship from Jim. I want a guy that prioritizes me just as much (if not more) than I prioritize them with my time. I want to date someone who makes me laugh when I take life a little too seriously, like my French crush. I learned from the hot RA that deep conversations don’t have to be difficult to have if both parties care enough to be completely vulnerable with one another.

The learning process doesn’t always stem from the actions you do take but also the ones you don’t. Although none of these interactions manifested into any real romances, they helped me to reflect and put the pieces together to visualize the kind of partner I may want in the future. With the rest of my twenties ahead of me, I don’t have any plans to settle down anytime soon. Nevertheless, I know to appreciate all of the love that I have in my life in all forms to be ready for when that time comes.