I remember him like it was yesterday.
I was sitting in the library, highly strung out on the tasty, sweet goodness of a 6 pm Starbucks latte.
As I searched the pages of my textbook to keep myself motivated to stay awake and not collapse from exhaustion, I heard those magical words.
“Hey, can you move your backpack?”
I looked up to find this Adonis, and I quickly moved my backpack while I muttered under my breath that I was sorry.
Two days later, we ran into each other again in the library, and this time, he took the one chair left to sit in: the chair next to mine.
We exchanged some words, found out we had a class together in one of the lecture halls and exchanged numbers in an effort to have “study groups” when test time came around.
From then on, I knew I had fallen in love.
Freshman love in college is like the plague. If you get too close to someone else who has it, you’re bound to catch it yourself.
While I had swarmed and dodged every passing glance or cheesy, “Hey, baby, are you an angel?” line that had been thrown at me, the mystic and evil Cupid caught me trippin’ one day in the library, for Pete’s sake.
Despite how corny I knew it to be, I loved every second of it.
I couldn't get enough of the picking me up after class let out, going to the cafeteria or walking me back to my dorm.
The late study sessions (where we actually studied) were followed by strolls around the campus and walking me back to my dorm.
It was the first time actually receiving roses from someone other than my friends or myself.
I knew in my young, 18-year-old heart this was true love, and I thought we would inevitably be together forever.
I felt like Charlotte from "Sex And The City," planning out every meticulous detail of the man I would marry, the house we would live in (on the Upper East Side, of course) and the cute, cultured children we would have.
Then, winter break happened.
Over the course of a month (because in college, winter break is actually a break), I heard from him maybe four or five times.
Each time was met with a, “Hey, sorry, I’m super busy,” or “Yeah, I’ll call you when I get home.”
However, there were no calls, which made me believe he never got home.
I felt myself creating lies for him and myself, telling my girlfriends how he would call me every day and we would talk on the phone till we fell asleep, like real lovers did.
What was I supposed to do? Just give up on him?
No. We were supposed to get married.
I fought and tried until the inevitable happened.
January rolled around, and we welcomed in a spring semester.
I was walking across the yard with my friends one day when I saw him, in his beautiful, statuesque deliciousness, with another girl.
They were holding hands, mind you.
My heart broke. My ears bled.
My soul crushed in a million pieces, and I knew right then and there that I was going to drop dead.
He looked up and saw me staring at him, probably like a wild woman looking to attack him for my next meal.
He quickly did a turn and led her off into the sunset (I presume to her next class).
I hoped he was taking her to hell right with him.
That day, I learned the true depth of many college relationships. The first one horribly sucks.
It’s usually painful and disgusting, and it will have you relapsing well into your 20s as you sit and curse that cute girl for taking away the dream you never had.
Then, you realize it’s not her. It’s him.
The loser that missed out on a good thing will never win you back because you are too great, too amazing and too freaking talented to be anyone’s second lover (even if he is an Adonis).
College will teach you all you need to know about the world and the skills needed for the job you'll work at for the rest of your life.
But, college will not teach you how to get over your first big-girl heartbreak.
No, honey. Nothing but time and wine does that.
