Tatiana Pérez

You’re obviously down to drink in celebration of a major game, but you never know who you’re playing, and you could not care less about the outcome.

You pregamed breakfast with Fruit Roll-Ups this morning.

All of them wanted sex. None of them wanted me.

Doesn’t our beloved hookup trope revolve around the idea that girls are only interested in guys who treat them like shit? That the moment a dude considers a woman a human being capable of feeling, that woman will immediately lose interest?

Love doesn’t mean fixing. Or making whole. Or finishing one another’s sentences because you’re the peanut butter to his jelly.

We knew they’d all turn around in a few years and want us more than we would want them.

That dude who dated the Theta president twelve years ago? Yeah, OFF LIMITS.

We legit do not know how to write a check. (No, guys, we can’t “just venmo” our landlord this month’s rent…)

My insides turn as I stuff them with whatever I can find: cookies I don’t like, dry pasta, days-old rice. The food’s not feeding my hunger; I’m not hungry, and I haven’t been for an hour. But I can’t stop. I’ll starve myself tomorrow.

You navigated the impossible landscape of college hook-up politics together, and somehow, your relationship survived.

Here’s the great paradox of this shitty ordeal: Acute workaholism inconveniences our relationship in a million ways, but the symptoms—ambition, energy, diligence, confidence—are among the many reasons why I love him.

All I’m saying is, damn, the breakup doesn’t seem so inevitable anymore. And I’m not so sure I’ve got to live and love another before I make my way back to you.

I still remember that blinding rush of adrenaline. Those wicked giggles we whispered as we turned our smug grins to Park Avenue’s midnight sky and lit our treasure. How we felt every bit as glamorous as we’d anticipated. How we felt like movie stars.

“…I ended up wandering the hallway, stark nude, for hours.”

When you don’t get to see his face or touch his skin, a “hi what’s up” text means a lot more than it used to.

If you’re not comfortable divulging your “issues” to a new special someone early on, it probably won’t last.

These real accounts of bizarre familial traditions will convince you that there really is no normal.

For all the times I am—have been, will be—guilty of taking you, for lack of a hipper idiom, for granted: I love you, and you make me happy.