One unread text: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
It’s the text that no person in a relationship wants to receive. And while breakups are almost always painful at first — no matter which side you’re on — time can soften the messiest drama into a funny story. And when you date a UTD student, the stories get even funnier.
While the poll expressed that some breakups ended because of lighthearted reasons, not all of the respondents’ relationships ended amicably. For example, criminology senior Venice Osorio’s said that their relationship came to an end when they found out their ex had built a swastika in his Minecraft world.
“He had this dungeon thing in his Minecraft world that was underground, and it was like hell,” Osorio said. “He had just different symbols like a pentagram. All that is fine, but then when I saw the swastika was on fire, I was like oh, you can’t have this here.”
Osorio met their ex in their junior year of high school, when both were in their high school’s choir program.
“We had one of those relationships that was like the really gross people in high school who make out in the hallway,” Osorio said. “Just completely embarrassing.”
The infatuation between the two didn’t last, as Osorio recounts other “red flags” in their relationship.
“He didn’t really like it when I hung out with his friends and I later found out [the reason was] because they knew that he was cheating on me,” Osorio said. “There were things that didn’t add up or he’d blow things out of proportion that like were not obviously not a big deal to anyone but him, you know.”
The end of Osorio’s relationship altered their perspective on how relationships would work by introducing new boundaries and preferences they’d want in a relationship.
“What I didn’t want was like another relationship where there’s a power imbalance and like, where I’m the person constantly seeking attention and affection and the other person who’s holding it above my head,” Osorio said. “A lot of our relationship was spent [with], like, him saying or doing offensive things and then me trying to fix him.”
However, it’s not just young people that have relationship drama. With time, messy relationships become messy marriages and, often, messy divorces. One poll respondent in the survey detailed their marriage and its bitter end.
“It was an arranged marriage so we had been set up and agreed to marry each other, but it was not what desis [Indian people] would call a ‘love match’. His family lied about approving of me and after we got married actively worked to convince him to leave me.”
Though breakups are the end of a relationship, that doesn’t mean they have to be the end of your life. Slowly, but surely, you’ll begin to move on to newer and happier chapters. Osorio warns those who wish to enter a new relationship to seek internal happiness before all else. Osorio also advises to stay away from resuming romantic relationships you’ve already had, citing the sentiment that if it doesn’t work the first time, it most likely will not work again.
“19, 20 year olds, they’re way too young to have a relationship that requires them to fight for it,” Osorio said.