In college, you are bound to explore yourself. Within the college atmosphere, dating interests come up. It is a fun but scary time to navigate your personal growth with yourself and what you want in relationships. As someone in an active relationship and trying to juggle work, a social life, and classes, I’m here to share some ways to enjoy your dating scene while still keeping you from going insane! The idea of dating online, navigating academics while dating, and ways of prioritizing yourself when dealing with dating is scary. I’m here to guide new people in the dating world in college!
College brings up the obvious options of using online dating apps and sites to find a potential match. Whether you want something short and sweet or a long-term relationship, you can find one on any dating site that fits your needs! There are options like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble that are mainly used by college students. I have used Hinge and Tinder throughout my college journey with many unfortunate flops along the way. However, there is room for certain people to take advantage of the app and your safety is the utmost priority. These apps have certain features that help eliminate feeling unsafe in chatting with people and tools if you meet someone on one of these sites. For example, Hinge has an automatic sensor for anything inappropriate sent to you and immediately flags it. It also lets you report from your side anonymously if you don’t want to continue messaging someone.
Let’s also talk about navigating through academics while pursuing relationships. It’s incredibly important to prioritize academics with whatever you pursue in college. This helps you grow more as a person and gain more independence for yourself and what you want to do in college. It is completely appropriate to establish rules and boundaries to prevent anything from interfering with the education you pay for. For example, let’s say you want to have time to yourself sometimes to study and catch up on homework most of the week. It is good to tell this person that you need space and responses from you will be delayed sometimes. This provides good communication with the person and gives them a heads up on the appropriate time to talk to you when you have all of your tasks finished.Â
Finally, the most important thing is keeping yourself a number one priority. We hear all over social media or even from our friends and peers about what it is like to lose yourself in a relationship. The fear of feeling like you do not know yourself fully is completely normal! College is a rollercoaster, but don’t fly off the rails when you’ve just started! Instead of waiting for that text from someone from hours ago, try something new. Go out on a walk, write a journal entry expressing yourself about your day, or even just do your skincare routine for the day. Life isn’t about waiting on someone or being obsessed with the “what if.” Obsessing over the minor details about who you are getting to know can easily cause you to lose track. Practice different methods of keeping yourself as an individual on the right path to success.
In conclusion, we know that dating is a crazy ride in college life. So many factors play into the dating scene such as using technology for dating, prioritizing your academics, and keeping yourself straight while dating. Regardless, college dating is all about exploring yourself and others. It can bring you meaningful relationships no matter if they are romantic or platonic. IÂ hope that this helps you to find out more about yourself and approach dating in a newer, modern perspective for the society we live in right now.