Help Me I'm Single

Relationships at Exeter should function like a fat block free period on a Friday afternoon. You can curl up in a fluffy duvet with a bag of pretzel M&Ms and an episode of America’s Next Top Model. The stress of school and family melts away, and you are filled with warmth, happiness, and chocolate. A relationship at Exeter, such a high-stress, high-pressure, high-stakes environment, should do just that. Except it is even better, because you can watch Tyra while cuddling. During legal visitations, of course.Exonians are constantly struggling to achieve a perfect balance between all our balls spinning in the air. Extracurriculars, schoolwork, sports, arts, friends, dorm life. The list goes on. So, where does a romantic relationship fit in? Well, it doesn’t. Like everything else at Exeter, one must make time for it. But when one does, every other aspect of daily life, every other spinning ball, so close to coming crashing down, is enhanced, hovers for a few seconds longer. When stress is lifted for an hour long trip to Stillwells, the effect is felt for days afterwards. And, hey, maybe afterwards when you say you’ll do homework together in the library, you’ll actually get some done.That isn’t to say that relationships are stressless. They are often more drama-filled than any other part of high school life, as we have all learned from teen movies and young adult novels. But to reap the benefits of a happy, exciting, butterflies-in-your-stomach connection with another person, one must take a risk. Exonians must harness the unadulterated courage it takes to go into a math test without having studied a smidge, to start a Harkness conversation without having read the English homework, to face a History pop quiz unprepared. It may be crazy, it is probably stupid, but sometimes we have to do what we have to do. The benefits, the moments of pure adolescent giddiness that reverberate through the rest of Exeter life, are worth the panic and the moments of utter senselessness. So, Carpe diem. Or, if you prefer, YOLO.The necessity of relationships is often overemphasized, though. They are the subject of too many hushed conversations in grill, the reason for too many salty cheeks and choked up throats. The most important aspect of Exeter, the most crucial and, always, the most useful, is a different kind of relationship. The kind where you stay up late watching When Harry Met Sally for the umpteenth time, where you listen to each other talk about nothing for as long as you both need, where you hug and cry after you bomb that math test you took after not having studied a smidge (and those rare relationships that YOLO doesn’t help succeed). The relationships Exonians forge with the friends we meet here, those we bond with through the stress and the heartbreak, the laughter and the first EP dates, are some of the strongest bonds we will ever make. They can last a lifetime; they will last as long as we need them to. These relationships don’t often come with the same giddiness and butterflies as the other kind, but they are the ones that keep us going no matter what. And, maybe, if we’re lucky enough, someday we’ll all have both, combined in one cuddly, America’s Next Top Model-watching hottie.