Can a Summer Fling Become a College Thing?
What happens when you meet “the one” before college?
by Sophie Miller ★ October 12th, 2025
Photo credit: Sophie Miller
High school sweethearts never seemed realistic. I thought they were always a fake concept and that the ones who got to experience it were living everyone else's dream. I wasn’t a lucky one, or at least that's what I thought until graduation.
It was the end of May when I was introduced to him through a mutual friend. It was the summer before freshman year to be excited, have no care in the world and to spend time with your best friends who you will soon not be seeing everyday. However, my incoming freshman summer got interrupted by my first love.
I knew it would be more than something casual from the second I met him. We hit it off right away and from that point on, we spent every day together. How do we approach our situation if we had been dating for three months? He knew I was going away for school and I never wanted to go into college in a relationship; however, I had also never planned to feel this way before.
How could I prepare for college and be as excited as I was senior year when I was now leaving behind something so important to me? Freshman year of college was all I could think about for the longest time, and after meeting my first love I suddenly had so many mixed emotions. Going to Syracuse was everything I had wanted, worked so hard for and looked forward to, but that all changed into a feeling of bittersweet.
“Just break up with him” I would hear. “You’ll find many guys in college.” Why would I want “many guys” who mean nothing when I have ONE that means EVERYTHING? Will the hurt be inevitable? Saying we are “not exclusive” and he’s “not my boyfriend” is technically the correct term, but I’m not interested in casual hook ups with guys; does that go against the stereotypical freshman year experience? I think the stereotypical experience should be about the long lasting friendships you make and the success you navigate on your own in your career. I wasn’t holding back from fully immersing myself into this exciting new college life, yet part of me felt missing. I’m fully present and intoxicated with everything orange, but I feel a pit in my stomach when I have flashes of summer.
“It was less than three months,” they say.“It’s not worth it.”. Maybe that was partially correct, but there was also no guidebook on how to handle these situations that don’t fall into the conventional standards of relationships. Sometimes it’s worth it to take a risk for love.
He’s technically not my high school sweetheart, so what do I call him? I’m still trying to make sense of it all.. Right person wrong time is how I like to look at this situation.
Even though he wasn’t my official college sweetheart, he was still something real- and real things don;t just disappear with a change of location. We still talk, we care, and even if it’s not labeled conventional, we're figuring it out. Of course some days are harder than others, but having experienced such a special connection, and knowing that it exists in real life, not just in the movies, is more comforting than confusing. That summer showed me how love can show up unexpectedly even when you think it doesn't fit into a perfect timeline of what you envisioned.
I’m still fully committed to my college experience- I’m meeting new people, chasing my goals, and discovering who I am. But I will also do what feels right to me rather than conforming to the standards of the conventional norms of the college culture that I am now exposed to. I am learning that it’s okay to carry parts of the past, especially the ones that remind you of how deeply you’re capable of feeling.
Edited by: Anna Altman