Need Dr. Drew relationship advice but don’t have the sensationalistic drama to warrant TV time? Unfortunately, Real Live College Guy Ryan isn’t a reality show therapist. However, he can provide the lowdown on everything you’ve ever wanted to know about college males: how they think, act, speak and genuinely interact with the women in their lives.
My (now ex-) boyfriend is graduating this spring while I still have two years of school left. He says he still loves me, he still wants to be friends (maybe even more), but he doesn’t want to date me because he wants to do “his own thing his last semester,” which he swears doesn’t include dating other girls. We dated for over a year and this came really out of the blue. Should I hold out hope that he’ll want me to be his girlfriend again, or should I just move on? — Waiting at Wake Forest
No man has ever said, “I want to do my own thing,” and not implied that he’ll be doing whatever he damn well pleases.
It’d be understandable if he were a Wall Street intern working 100-hour weeks. However, I’m going to assume his spring won’t consist of market analysis, but will instead include waking up at noon to start day drinking. Don’t be too confident that he wants to date any time soon.
It’s a very passive-aggressive form of breaking up. It sucks and it’s regrettable that he couldn’t be upfront about what he wanted. He probably felt tied down for the year that you dated and wants to just be (for lack of a better word) “free.”
You probably didn’t do anything to make him call it quits, but like you said, he’s graduating and you’re not. The best course of action is moving on. Understandably, that’s hard, but don’t let it turn into a friends-with-benefits relationship. He’ll try to woo you and tell you how much he misses you, but it’ll be surface-level BS to get into your pants.
Be friendly, but don’t be his booty call—since he’ll probably consider you a back-up plan when a bar hook-up doesn’t pan out. He wouldn’t have wanted to “do his own thing” if he wanted to continue dating.