THE TEEN EXPERIENCE: Cameron & Evie College Freshmen
Love! <3
Evie and I have been dating for over a year and a half, but it seems like a whole lot longer. We’re writing this together, curled up in my dorm room in Providence, Rhode Island. Even though we go to different schools our dorms are only 5 minutes apart, and we make time to see each other everyday. We technically went on our first date freshman year of high school. It went… poorly. I got so nervous I threw up. This sounds really bad but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, I promise. Evie could not have possibly handled the situation better, but I was still mortified. Unsurprisingly, we didn't really talk much after that.
Fast forward two years, and we found ourselves in the same friend group. We started hooking up in the spring of junior year, meeting at the beach halfway between our houses. This simple beginning became a fun and healthy relationship that has helped us both grow more than we ever imagined.
We pretty much do everything together. We spend lots of time with one another, just being in the same place but working on our own homework or doing our own thing. But we also make art together, go to concerts and other fun things. We wrote and illustrated a children's book together for our senior year art class and dressed up as one another during halloween senior year and won the costume contest. Although not an entirely original idea, it worked very well because we have very contrasting styles and interests. Even though we love each other and function as a unit, we are still very different people. The term opposites attract really comes to mind while writing this.
These differences have helped us grow in many ways because they’re learning opportunities. Would Evie go to a rap concert if she wasn’t dating me? Nah probably not. Would I go to a chorus performance if I wasn't dating Evie? nah probably not. Although the is a pretty generic example it can be applied to all of our contrasting interests, of which there are many. One of the most important for me has been Evie’s influence on my school work. Her good study habits and love of school really helped me change my perspective on school, ultimately helping raise my high school GPA. Another one of our differences is how we handle stress and make plans. I would consider myself the type to just go with the flow, I don’t really need a destination or a plan. Evie likes making plans and sometimes gets stressed when we don’t have a plan. But just like she’s helped me with school work and study habits, I’ve helped her with feeling less stressed and more chill. We have different friend groups and go to different schools, but we’ve found a way for our differences make us closer. More than anything, we are honest and talk about how we feel. Open communication is everything to a good relationship.
This kind of love is the only thing either of us want. It makes us happy and helps us to grow and become stronger people. As a couple, we’re usually the outlier in both our high school and college friend groups that are so immersed in hook up culture. There are so many different kinds of relationships that can bring people joy, and we’ve found ours <3
