We’ve all experienced him before. The guy who sat in front of you on the first day of lecture, whose dark brown eyes and perfect hair left you swooning at 9:25 a.m. As you walked out of class, hoping to accidentally bump into him on your way out the door, you immediately texted your best friends all the relevant details: his name, his major and the wedding date. So began the story of your “semestr-ationship.”
Gone were the days of wearing the same tired sweatshirt and sweatpants to your morning class. You set your alarm early to ensure you had enough time to curl your hair and do your makeup, just in case he decided to turn around one day and ask you to his formal. Shockingly, he never did! Of course the day you felt especially proud of the job you did with your curling wand, he was nowhere to be found. You reason that he skipped the lecture because he already knew the material. (Because there was no way your future husband would ever be lazy enough to simply sleep through class, right?) He was a genius who already knew everything a Notre Dame lecture could teach him.
By the end of January, the semestr-ationship was starting to get serious. Had you actually talked to the guy? No. But you’d learned everything there was to know about his life by stalking both his Instagram and LinkedIn pages. He had a girlfriend last semester, but you’re pretty sure they broke it off over winter break. You figured with two weeks left until Valentine's Day, he had plenty of time to ask you to ask you to be his girlfriend. Or glance in your direction. You’d take either.
Unfortunately, things began to go downhill. First, you saw him in the dining hall on the day you skipped your makeup, and even worse, he looked right past you. Was he just being nonchalant, or did he legitimately not recognize you? You began to fear the second option was true. Still, you canceled plans with your friends the night of his formal, only to spend the next morning staring forlornly at the girl in the dome pic he posted on his story. This has you spiraling into a week of drowning your emotions in copious amounts of dining hall soft serve.
By the time midterm season set in, you began to accept the fact that this may not be the guy for you. You studied for the exam alone in your dorm, trying to put aside thoughts of a romantic date in Hesburgh. As you clicked through the posted slides, you realized that all the time you spent in class imagining the two of you together could have been better spent learning the material, which you now are forced to reteach yourself.
Don’t feel too bad, though; the semestr-ationship is a canon college event. Let’s just hope that your brief period of lunacy doesn’t come back to haunt you on your final grades.