Freak of the Week,
I’ve been in this situationship for most of the term. We’ve been hanging out, hooking up and texting all the time, but never had the ‘what are we?’ convo. Now that summer’s coming up and we’re both heading home — in different states — I have no idea what to do. Should I try to define things before we leave? Let it fade out naturally? I’m torn between wanting closure and not wanting to make it weird. Help!
- Confused Before Break
For the handful of weeks since we’ve started this column, I feared getting this question. It’s hard, confusing and one that I’ve had to deal with in my own life at Dartmouth, albeit not very well. The answer to this is extremely dependent on circumstance, but I’ll try to give my most unqualified advice.
Let’s face it: summer is a really long time. Even for people who met during the year and are dating. As the resident romantic of this column, I’m inclined to tell you that if you feel a connection with someone, you should let it ride, even if it’s in some ill defined, unofficial way. But, I’m not going to tell you to do this because, as anyone who has tried to do this knows, it’s a very bad idea. The fact that you are considering continuing to talk to this person while in different states implies that the relationship is more than physical for you, which means that there are some feelings. When you have feelings for someone, you think about them.
If you think about someone a lot while they’re far away and not committed to you, it can make you go crazy. Are they seeing that ex hometown relationship? Are they using dating apps? Even an imbalance in texting can make people overthink in these scenarios, and I don’t want that for your summer.
The choice here is binary, with a couple of potential outcomes. The first option is to talk to this person and try to make it official with them before we leave for summer. I would advise you to do this only if you are absolutely sure of it. Don’t weigh yourself down with a new long distance relationship if you aren’t sure of what you want.
The second and only other option is to cut ’em off, baby. Don’t text, don’t call, none of that. This seems cruel, but I genuinely think it’s the only way to stay sane in a situationship like this where you aren’t dating the person. Focus your efforts on stuff at home. If you find yourself thinking about them a lot, even after a week or two, it’s worth coming back after summer and trying to spark things up again. Fair, the person might be pissed off that you decided to ghost them, but you could even explain your reasoning before you leave — “I like this but am not sure of it, let’s have our own summers and then reevaluate when we come back.” If you decide to get back together, I think the relationship will be stronger than ever.
If you leave campus and forget about them, enough said. No need to continue a painful text chain, worry about what they’re doing or feel guilty about what you’re up to. It was a nice, term-long fling and you can always reconnect again at some point if your paths cross.
- Eli
Freak of the Week is a weekly relationship advice column co-written by Leila Brady ’27 and Eli Moyse ’27. If you’d like to submit a question, email it to dartmouthfreakoftheweek@gmail.com
Eli Moyse ’27 is an opinion editor and columnist for The Dartmouth. He is from Connecticut, and studies government and creative writing.
On campus, Eli is an active member of the Dartmouth Political Union and Dartmouth Army ROTC. He attends Dartmouth on an ROTC scholarship, and upon graduation, he will commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He has been an active writer and political organizer from a young age, working on over 15 political campaigns varying from local to presidential races, and publishing both fiction and nonfiction on various platforms.
First and foremost, Eli loves to write, and he intends to make some form of it his full time career after his time in the Army.
