Despite the exhausted FACs whose sweaty size-large T-shirts testify otherwise, many freshman have come to Duke minus something important--something heavier than even boxes packed with five dozen pairs of shoes. And unfortunately, even its absence creates heavy baggage. Yes, high school "loves."
It seems almost every Duke student who actually dated in high school brings their boyfriend or girlfriend with them in fear that everyone at Duke will be dorky and bad looking (not entirely true) and that they will never find such real feelings again as the ones they conjured in the backseat of their first car. In practically every 200-square-foot dorm room (150 if you pretended to have allergies to get air-conditioning), there are pictures taped to the wall of one side of the room that will be stared at longingly during long distance and oft-pointless phone conversations.
But the chance of these pictures lasting longer than a two-beer tolerance is slim. They will be pulled down when these freshman bring someone new back to their room Sheryl-Crow-Kid-Rock-style, and frantically replaced in their proper shrines when the significant other comes to visit.
What follows is a list of anomalies more likely than still being with the same home-grown love by the beginning of sophomore year: earning a 4.0 freshman year; staying in Pratt, even if you are a girl; spending less than $500 at Uniquities by graduation; going to the gym everyday; still loving the Marketplace by the end of the year.
In other words, you have Duke football's chance in a bowl game. And many deep factors enter into a relationship's longevity prediction, like the quality of your cell phone service and the ratio of A.B. Dukes to athletes in your dorm.
But Maureen wanted to hear nothing of it her freshman year. She and her high school boyfriend had been together about two years and she loved him very much, thank you. Her room was adorned with framed pictures, wall pictures, collage pictures and even refrigerator pictures of Frank, who somewhat resembled a fetus. And she spoke with him everyday, sometimes even two or three times a day. And she was very loyal.
"What do you mean, you haven't cheated?" Sidney asked. Maybe Maureen really did blackout from two drinks; she had always thought she was speaking figuratively. "What about the guy down the hall? Or the guy upstairs? Or that Lacrosse player?"
"Oh I pretty much just kissed all of them--that's not cheating," Maureen said. Pretty much, Sidney thought. "But don't bring it up of course when Frank visits. You never know how people define cheating."
Indeed. Perhaps therein lies the problem. At the ripe age of 18, most of us have not had a serious long distance relationship before, and there is no ideal example to model it after. And then freshmen are plopped into the most exciting (or at least unchaperoned) time of their lives, constantly meeting new people, many of whom aren't even bad looking. The ambiguity of the whole thing creates a slippery slope.
And it doesn't get better with age. Sidney had never understood the people freshman year who would dedicate a perfectly good going-out night, like Monday, to talking on the phone with someone she had to assume was boring. But now, years later, when she was supposed to be older and wiser, here she was in a long distance relationship. It hadn't, of course, started out as a long-distance relationship, but rather had become one when her beau of a year and a half (somewhat off and on, though) had the nerve to graduate and leave her.
Amazingly, they still had not had the terms-of-engagement discussion, like two ostriches hiding their heads in a pile of dirty laundry. But Sidney knew instinctively (she knows these things) that as much as she loathed all such discussions, it simply must be had. All they had agreed on, though, was "playing it by ear." The question was, what the hell did that mean?
"I think it might just be guy-speak for 'exclusive until we find a reason not to be, so let's save the conversation for then," Sidney said to Daisy, as they walked through a crowded fraternity party, debating whether they were scoping out guys for just Daisy or for the both of them. "And that's just fine with me. Ideal really, unless of course I am misinterpreting the meaning of 'play it by ear' and then that's not fine with me because I don't want to be a bitch."
Daisy, needless to say, took the side of a friend who would much rather have a partner to prowl with than someone who talks about such ridiculous relationship minutia. "I'm sure it does," she said. "Besides it's your senior year and there are still so many cute guys.... Well, sort of."
But maybe having experienced the relationship in a Duke setting means a senior in a long distance relationship is not running the same course as a freshman. Maybe if you have practiced on the course, it's easier to make the actual race a marathon instead of a sprint because you are prepared for the hurdles. But, then again, there are some people who just can't run long distance, aren't there?
His freshman year, Blakely did not even walk the ambiguous line of Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell-Just-Drink. The boy had a beautiful girlfriend that he didn't seem to like but whom he also couldn't seem to break up with. And she lived close enough to drive in regularly, at which time Blakely had ingeniously maneuvered a plan to dislodge all worries his girlfriend might have had that her big college boyfriend was less than faithful.
I include the Blakely example as closing words of advice for freshman who will undoubtedly follow the same path, but who should at least do it well. Blakely would pull out the framed picture of Cindy, from a drawer that also included a page with scribbles like "I love Cindy" and "I miss Cindy," and he would quickly prominently display both on his desk, as though they lived there in his personal ode to the girl. And then he would isolate her from all his friends who might blab by saying, "They are all so sick of hearing me talk about you--they probably won't even treat you with respect."
And he kept this harrowing act up, being miserable on her every visit, well into his sophomore year. That is, until he finally provided the final lesson: he dumped her and, minus that picture business, proceeded with life entirely as he had before.
Whitney Beckett is a Trinity senior. Sex and the Chapel appears every other Friday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.