Students in Long Term Relationships Defer Commitment Issues to Senior Year

Junior finance major Braxton Bolton and junior petroleum engineering major Rachel Descartes have been dating since freshman year. They met at a party between their two FLOs and ended up dating soon after. Both are well liked, athletic, and high achieving, and most people think the relationship is destined for marriage.

However, as both Bolton and Descartes have started looking for internships, Bolton began to think about the future paths he and Descartes want to take. He wants to work for a bank in New York, while she is more worried about staying in Houston working in the energy business. Bolton thought for a few days that maybe the ominous feeling in his gut was something he should address. But then, after a fun date night with Descartes, he decided to not worry about it until senior year.

“I mean, I love Rachel, and maybe we want different things out of life, but I really love Rachel,” said Bolton. “I’m down to date someone in Houston while I’m pulling 80-hour weeks in New York. It’ll totally work out. It always does if you really love someone, but we don’t have to worry about it for a while.”

Bolton is not the only person to delay dealing with the potential relationship problems. Junior Allegra McFarland, who is still dating her high school boyfriend after they came to A&M together, believes that, while they are different people than they used to be, everything will be fine.

“I think we might be going through a weird funk right now, but I’m sure we still love each other,” said McFarland. “Other guys make me laugh more than he does, and sometimes I wish we would go out dancing, but he’s not really about it. My friends have told me I’m out of his league, but we have a whole year before we graduate and it’ll work itself out.”

Couples with fundamental differences, such as junior Student Senator Blake Voltaire and junior women’s and gender studies major Ashley Rachmaninoff, have also decided not deal with their issues until they absolutely have to.

“We avoid the topic of politics in our relationship because the best way to deal with problems is to pretend they don’t exist,” said Voltaire. “We’ll have to talk about it when the whole marriage thing starts popping up. Until then, we have a whole year, and it’ll work itself out by then, right?”

The Mugdown caught up with senior Abigail Hampstead, who broke up with her boyfriend of three years at the end of August, to ask her thoughts on the issue.

“Oh, there were so many red flags,” said Hampstead. “We should’ve broken up a year ago. There are some issues you know are going to cause a relationship to fail, and we had most of those issues.”

When asked why she didn’t pull the plug sooner, Hampstead cited the difficulty of facing the facts.

“It’s hard to talk about hard things when you’re having fun,” said Hampstead. But hey, life always works itself out.”

 

—Fish Daddy