Open Relationships Come College: “I’ll be bitter as fuck, but I get it”

“Sarah, if you ever need to have someone to hook-up with in college, or get any tension out with… I get it. I’ll be bitter as fuck, but I get it.”

Having had some weird conversations in the past, this one struck me as particularly odd, discussing the concept of an open relationship in college. I’ve never particularly felt drawn to the option until now, until I begin to grasp the difficult that a long distance high-school-turned-college romance will pose. There will be days where I yearn for physical contact, just to be held, kissed, loved in every sense of the word. And after having spent the past seven months dating him, the past three years with Brian there, around me, hugging me, kissing me, wiping my tears as I cling to him and our hope for the future, I hope I can survive a year apart.

“I’m just trying to do things on my own terms as much as possible.”

There’s something about long distance relationships (LDRs) that just… takes away a sense of control. It eliminates the face-to-face contact, the daily talks, knowing your loved one’s surroundings. And what if they cheat on you? What if they get drunk at a college party or the likes and end up in the bed of someone the next day? I’m not saying that’s not morally reprehensible, I’m just saying that it happens. And that the person isn’t entirely to blame.
“Just… if it happens, let me know sooner rather than later” 

The true cruelty of the entire thing is that if you do sleep with someone ,if you do cheat or break their trust, you have to tell them, and subsequently break their heart and perhaps their whole world. You have to eliminate your future with them, or at least their trust for awhile… You have to obliterate the concept that a relationship cannot end unless on their own respective terms. You have to destroy them.
If Brian cheated on me, I’d be a wreck. Even if next year, under this open relationship title, he found someone else, I would be inconsolable, because right now… he’s my world. He’s the only one who knows 100% about me, as much as possible, at all times. We’re attached at the hip. I just hope that, among all else, I can resist the allure of a different guy at college at a party, because out of sight, out of mind often applies when speaking of drunks. I can’t break Brian’s heart. If there’s anything stopping me from sleeping with someone else- and trust me, there are many, many things-, it’s the guilt that I would inevitably feel, and the pain from his pain. We’ve been through a lot together, Brian and I. I never thought it’d go to the point where we’d be in an open relationship come college… but an open relationship is better than no relationship, right? It’ll take even more trust than a long distance one, because then we have to trust each other not to fall in love with the new person.

We’ll see how this whole thing pans out come September… until then, I’ll be stuck in limbo.