::Were you ready for college::

Undergrad years: Helpful or hindrance to lasting relationships

By:L.Banks M. Ed

College aged and older men and women, oftentimes still girls and boys in the mind perpetually find themselves amidst some sort of conundrum. Men oftentimes wonder where quality, attractive, intelligent women are while women can’t seem to understand why he said he would call but he didn’t or simply why “he” does exist in her life. The complexities of male female relationships are many however the landscape of relationships have taken an interesting turn over the last decade. More and more lower, middle and upper class men and women are going to college out of their home state. You (yep you the reader) can probably relate to this. You are from Atlanta and went to college in Maryland or Virginia or somewhere (if you didn’t just keep reading anyway). Spending four years away from home you built friendships and family in and around your College or University area. When you graduated lots of friends and maybe even some love interests went back to their home or somewhere else to pursue career and or financial dreams. Your college family is now scattered all over the United States. The relationship you had may have been mutually ended or severed by one person because you knew doing the “long distance thing” would be too hard and you felt too young to be tied down. Now fast forward a few years. Maybe you are back in your home town or maybe you have relocated back to your college home and you genuinely want to build with someone and have a lasting relationship. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone viable around. You want the good stuff, a real one, perhaps something that could lead on to future lifelong endeavors but that close knit of family you had in college is spread out and everyone is doing there own thing. You wish you could go back and have the closeness that you had with your friends in undergrad or even perhaps the budding relationship that was too good at an age that was too young. Could it be that since we have been in kindergarten we have been preparing for a goal. The goal was to get good grades, go to college and pursue your dreams. Nowhere in that preparation was a focus on female male relationships and family yet we wonder why we have so concerns in an area that our culture dictates we neglect until we realize we want a good relationship but have no idea how to get one.
Generations X and Y’rs parents did not go onto to college in as high a number nationally as we are. So after highschool getting a good job and starting a family was a common plan that brought lots of fulfillment and stability to our parents generations lives. Our generation on the other hand just may have the highest incidences of broken families and individuals who lack fulfillment. Could college, as necessary as it is and as vital actually be a hindrance or a factor that consequently delays maturation of young men and women. When you add on graduate school our generation is often 24 or 28 years old before they realize that they need more than a great career. Wheras generations before us knew that family came first, and working towards goals as a family unit was easier and more joyous done together than alone. Perhaps a requisite course in all Liberal Arts Schools should be life, relationships and love 101. So many of us graduate with degrees but are baffled by the difficulty to attain personal happiness through relationships.

**The writer of this segment by no means suggests that College is a negative force is the lives of young people. Higher educations provides life opportunities that can only benefit anyone who attends. She simply poses a thought that may begin a discourse on questions that plague the minds and hearts of men and w

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