Dear HS/SS-

I have a boyfriend that goes to DMACC and he’s definitely theLOVE of my LIFE!!! We have plans to get married and we are evenplanning our wedding. He’s very protective of me though. Everymorning I call him when I get up and he wants me to call him everytime I leave my room. We talk on the phone every night for at leastan hour. I don’t really mind it– I know that he loves me. The onlyreason I’m writing is because I’m running out of cell phone minutesevery month- and I don’t know if this is really healthy. I don’tleave my room because I don’t know many people here and myboyfriend always gets mad when he calls and he gets my voicemail.What is your advice for a love-struck freshman? Will ourrelationship work if we’re in two different places… should Itransfer? Is this over-protective thing just a phase?

– A Kresge Girl with no Life

I’d say you should start being upfront with him soon before thesituation gets out of hand. Tell him that as much as you’d like totalk to him every moment of the day, you have to face reality. Yousimply can’t do it; otherwise your income will end up at Sprint,Verizon or T-Mobile every month.

As for being possessive, tell him to hold on to his horses. Hecannot expect you to be home all the time.

You’re human too.

You have friends; you have things to do and certainly places tovisit.

One thing that works for some couples is to schedule your calls.Set up a time when he can call you and vice versa.

That way you both know that’ll be the time(s) that work for bothof you.

As far as transferring: I think it depends on why you chose thecollege you chose and why you go to college.

If you’d much rather compromise your Simpson experience forDMACC just to be with a boyfriend, then do as you please. If youchose this college because of what you hoped to gain from it, thenI’d say you stay and do just that.

There’s no point in chasing his pants and compromising youreducation.

Boyfriends come and go but your education will always be withyou.

–Vee

If I’ve seen it once I’ve seen it a thousand times-this is theclassic case of an over-controlling boyfriend in a long distancerelationship. You have no friends here because you’re on the phonewith him all the time… get a life. And when I say ‘get a life’that has to start by getting rid of him!

I’ve seen at least 20 relationships crumble because of distanceissues and because they couldn’t survive the transition from highschool to college-the fact is college is a lot different than highschool and so are relationships. When you step up your academicsusually college relationships have to take a step down. That’s justthe way it goes- very rarely, if ever, do high school relationshipslast throughout your college years. Also, don’t forget you’re notonly here to develop academically-you’re also here to develop as aperson. If you don’t let go of what’s holding you back, you willnever really mature into what you could be.

So if you haven’t picked up on my subtle, or not so subtle,hints by now, my advice is to steer clear of DMACC… you shouldn’teven consider lowering yourself to his level. Also, if you thinkthat you’re just destined to be and it’s written in the stars… sobe it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when that fateful nightcomes around. You’ll be balled up in the hallway of Kresge with thecell phone permanently attached to your head balling your eyes outwith mascara running down your face, all because your loserboyfriend dumped you for some DMACC hottie… it’ll happen. If thispredicted fate doesn’t happen and you graduate from this fineinstitution with an engagement ring on your finger drop me aline… I’ll be interested to see how it all turned out. Untilthen-don’t let your idiot boyfriend keep you from developing andreaching your full potential.

–Andrea