Relationships

Before we came to America, most of us get to know the style of American love and romance through media. It is a kind of mutual equal and respect relationship in marriage we admire. But the fact is not what we thought. Duh. A Chinese female student actually summarized her and her friends' experience dating with American males and shared online. She said dance party, dorm party, clubbing are the common places to know different guys. So do school events, classes, libraries and gyms. However, the way of dealing relationships is very different.
There are one night stand, booty call, friends with benefits, date, in a relationship, in an open relationship. Some Chinese students like the American ways but some still prefer the Chinese way, which is in a relationship or you don't.

Relationships for us are just hard to maintain even though the couple is in the same school. Not to mention long distance relationships which most of us had this experience. The thing is, sometimes we do not know whether it is just lonely that we need somebody because studying and living in a foreign country or it is actually real love. And if it is real love, even when sharing similar values, there are practical issues will just break us down. For example, if we are in the same class year, the plan after college is important. What if the couple do not have a same plan? Most of us break up at this point because it involves commitment and sacrifice and college students are just not ready for that. Usually students change after college environment because they enter the real society and become real adults. The growth is crucial and if the couple is not on the same page together, the relationship becomes shaky. Say, if one needs to stay in America and one needs to go back to China. Also, if one goes to work after graduation and one continues to pursue a master degree. Remember, most of us want to end long distance relationship after college and try to be in a same city. And sometimes it is the whole visa situation causes the break up. The whole practical thing just make us not that confident in relationships. Of course there are couples who worked this our. But most just choose to love without commitment because things change quickly in America and commitment is just too heavy and cruel for those who want but can not get. A fun fact that I remember that statistically, East coast sides have more single female and California has more single male working in engineering and computer science industry. Relationships also suffer even if we go back to China.

We need love. Sometimes we do feel lonely and need someone to care. We want stable and mature relationships. But this is just hard. Thus we learn to love and cherish ourselves more.