One of the hallmarks of high school was drama. Beyond simple gossip, being a tween was about getting mad at people. There was a lot of crying in the hallways, and many long, friendship-defining talks. If you thought those friends were complicated, forget about romance. One misstep in the dating scene and everything could blow up in your face. Or so people say, I don’t know, I blocked most of this out upon graduation.
If the heart of adolescence was the “sturm und drang” that all of the German psychoanalysts thought it was, we’re supposed to be more mature and leveled out in college. No more raging furies; we try to have mature conversations. More importantly, we try not to allow every little thing to piss us off. Sturm und drang translates to storm and stress, so university could aptly be described as chill and stress (not caught up on the German slang so I won’t bother translating).
At least from what I’ve observed, most college students like to avoid conflict. There’s an overarching mentality that a lot of interpersonal problems aren’t worth hashing out in college because there are so many other things to spend time on. Is there a chance that we’ve gotten too chill? Or perhaps, chill isn’t actually the word, and our behavior actually resembles passive aggressive.
If we never get in big arguments, we’re missing out on an important aspect of learning when it comes to relationships – both romantic and platonic. If you really care about someone, shouldn’t you not be afraid to snap at them every once in a while? On the surface, this “it’s all good” lifestyle is much easier, but are we avoiding honest conversations? In being non-confrontational, we also run the risk of letting a situation fester. Once that happens, well, I don’t know what the metaphorical equivalent to antibiotics would be in this comparison, and maybe that speaks for itself.
Eventually, you will have to learn how to cope with your feelings, the passing and the lingering. It would be better to handle it now, with so much ahead of you, than in your fifties.
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