“My husband is not at USC” is a grievance I hear from my friends a few times a week. While it is usually delivered in jest, this comment reveals something more serious about the collegiate romantic experience. There’s a sense of urgency in the way we approach finding love, and for good reason: Campus creates the perfect storm for young relationships. 

Surrounded by similarly aged, like-minded people, Trojans might be primed to land their spouse, but that doesn’t mean we should be in such a rush to write our vows. 

Generation Z’s relative sex negativity has demonized casual relationships, damning one-night stands and situationships to counterproductive detours on the way to finding your person. But finality isn’t always the objective in relationships. Brief stints can be just as formative as longer relationships, serving as trial runs for more serious dating. 

College is the right era for this sort of experimentation. Sloppy nights, social missteps and even the infamous walk of shame can yield the interpersonal maturity required for fully realized adulthood. 

These ill-fated flings can inform how we communicate with others and understand ourselves, as well as what kind of relationships we want to seek out in the future. Arguably most importantly, the imperfection of the college dating sphere lets us incubate our worst qualities and, hopefully, expel them in due time. 

I have certainly had my fair share of swings and misses in my romantic career at USC, but I prefer to approach these blunders as valuable learning opportunities that punctuate my adolescence. Just because an interaction doesn’t promise a future, doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. I’ve shared a world of unique bonds with short-term partners, and they have all contributed to my own development in their own way and capacity. 

Social media’s optimization campaign has conditioned us to maximize our potential — socially, physically and romantically. Trends like the looksmaxxing phenomenon denominates romance as a win to tally.  

In an era when so many people treat deeply personal milestones like hollow conquests, there’s something to be said for interpersonal enjoyment purely for the sake of it. A night without a follow-up doesn’t mean that time is wasted or even not enjoyed. There’s beauty in connecting with someone just for the exercise, even if it doesn’t birth a spark. 

In many ways, college is the last time when we have that sort of insular environment to make mistakes with partial immunity from adult-level social expectations. The age-old college tradition of “sleeping around” may actually be a helpful safety net for socially permissible exploration, where we can try and fail at sex and romance a few times before being thrust into the less-controlled adult dating world. 

When we burden every sexual or romantic interaction with the pressure to develop into something more serious, we breed pressure that is both unrealistic and unnecessary. This one-track perspective quickly neglects the potential for other relationships to form out of a failed romantic connection. A low-stakes approach keeps space for friendships to grow with equal fervor alongside budding romances. 

The tension between a narrow desire for a permanent partner and a contradictory urge to participate in casual dating culture largely drives the dissatisfaction people find with casual sex and dating. If you enter every encounter with the expectation of a lasting romance, you deny yourself the freedom to let a relationship flower unburdened by a timeline. 

Taking the pulse of a connection over weeks and months as it thrives or loses steam naturally is crucial to the relationship’s health and longevity, and makes things lighter for everyone involved. Eyeing relationships with long-term tunnel vision removes that pillar of the experience. 

None of this is to say that hookup culture doesn’t have its shortcomings. Putting yourself out there is scary and oftentimes disappointing. Fast-paced romance can err on instability for some while being informative and rewarding for others.

Diving headfirst into the USC dating frenzy could be a misguided venture for someone not emotionally prepared, so it’s always best to proceed with grace for your own feelings and boundaries. No matter what, there’s no sense in berating the sexual legroom we’re awarded while at school. 

Human connections, whether they be romantic or platonic, are not a means to an end. Sharing intimacy with someone, regardless of its brevity, can be fulfilling in and of itself. My friends and I often look back fondly on a former hookup turned friend or misfire date that produced a classic inside joke. 

Maybe you’ll marry last night’s mistake. Maybe not. Either way, you’ll walk away a little bit different than when you arrived.