Editor’s note: This is the second in a four-part series exploring the relationship statuses of Ohio University students.
During the first weekend of freshman year, few people are actively looking for a long-term relationship. But for one Ohio University couple, that is exactly what happened.
After a three-year relationship ended, Meg Nicol moved into Read Hall as a freshman in September 2010.
Now a sophomore studying biological sciences, she said finding the perfect guy was far from her mind and that she was just looking to have fun in college. But, on the first day in her new dorm, she met someone she didn’t want to lose.
“We met the first day we moved in and were dating after the first week of class, officially.” she said. “We’ve been together now for 17 months.”
Nicol said that she and her boyfriend Andrew Kellogg hit it off so well and hung out so much their first week of college that she decided to ask him out.
“It just fell into place, and I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like that,” she said.
Although serious relationships are not something every college student experiences during their college career, Nicol said she doesn’t believe her relationship has led to missed opportunities.
Instead, she said the relationship has helped her gain more than being single could.
“I’m so much happier in a relationship; I just don’t have to worry about going to parties and thinking, ‘Oh, am I going home with someone if I party too hard?’ ” Nicol said. “He’s always there to look out for me and be there for me, and I’m there for him.”
Nicol and Kellogg have spoken about their future but never in a serious way. She said that, although the idea of being with someone for the rest of her life can seem scary, she would still be happy if everything works out between the two.
“If things stay this good, I would be absolutely thrilled if everything goes perfectly between Andrew and I,” she said. “But if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
The “future” conversation can be a stressful topic for college relationships to bridge, especially when the two people in the relationship are not graduating at the same time.
Amanda Hefflinger, a sophomore studying journalism, is dating someone two years her senior. Even though her boyfriend Sam Stefanak will be graduating at the end of Spring Quarter, they try to avoid the topic of what will happen after he leaves college.
“We’ve talked about it a little bit, but we try not to get too far into it,” Hefflinger said. “We’re trying to just go with the flow and not expect too much from anything.”
Relationships can become long-distance ones once an older partner graduates. This was the status of Rachel Hohenfeld’s relationship with Joe Wilkowski just one year after she and her boyfriend started dating — he was a junior and she a freshman, both studying video production.
The two decided to continue dating after graduation and make the hour-and-a-half drive almost every other weekend to visit each other during the school year.
Now a senior, Hohenfeld said long-distance dating can seem daunting at first, but she’s confident her relationship will survive.
“When I first started dating him at the end of freshman year, I went to Malaysia for the whole summer, and we stayed together through that and Skyped together the whole time,” she said. “And the next summer, I was in Washington, D.C. So after that, we knew that we could do it when he was just in Columbus.”
It takes a lot of trust and frequent communication to make a long-distance relationship work, Hohenfeld said. It can also put a strain on schoolwork because, when she visits her boyfriend or he visits her, she doesn’t have much time for anything else.
With graduation on the horizon, Hohenfeld said she and her boyfriend have decided to put their long-distance status to rest and move to the same place.
“We decided we will definitely be in the same city because we are done with the long-distance thing,” she said. “But we probably won’t live together because going from not seeing each other all the time to living together would be a big change.”
Although college relationships can come with a series of stressors — such as schoolwork, distance and age — Nicol said that, as long as the two parties are committed, dating in college can be successful.
“I think as long as you are enjoying yourself and having fun with that person and your relationship doesn’t become a burden, then dating in college is just fine,” she said.
bm257008@ohiou.edu
