With the pressure to use something meaningful for my eighth grade yearbook quote, I chose a phrase that resonated deep within me:

“Labels are for jars and not for people.”

I firmly believed in this. No one likes the term “geek” or “freak.” In fact, I thought labels were only designed so I knew whether or not the peanut butter on display was crunchy or smooth.

But during the summer before my freshman year in college, I had an experience that rocked my previous inclination. I realized how important labels are when I whole-heartedly fell for a boy.

Maybe it was the fact we seemed to move too fast. Maybe it’s because we’re taught not to settle down young and to embrace our options. Whatever the case was, I became twisted up in my first open relationship as I embarked on my journey to college.

It was definitely not my best idea.

Since it was long distance and we were both going to start very different chapters in our lives, we set conditions for the relationship. We still wanted to be together but we didn’t want our relationship to bar our time in college.

These guidelines were created so each of us could have the liberty to enjoy “freedom” while having one another to fall back to at the end of the day.

“My idea of an open relationship is a committed relationship with a contract or expectations to have other partners,” said Joseph Fanelli, a child and family studies instructor at Syracuse University. “That’s a traditional idea of a open relationship.”

My open relationship had more rules than that. In fact, being able to see other people was just one of the very long list of expectations we had created. Probably the most important rule to me was that we could do whatever we wanted with other people so long as we didn’t get emotionally attached to them.

An open relationship is different than a hookup. A hookup doesn’t require one to carry the emotional weight of a relationship, Fanelli said.

“Hooking up includes no emotional entanglement,” Fanelli said. “Booty calls, friends with benefits, one night stands— there are no strings attached. That kind of experience is different than the contract of an open relationship.”

To me it made sense to have this hookup clause in my open relationship. His military career had him in Mississippi, then Texas and finally Arizona. He couldn’t cater to me physically so he wanted me to find someone who could. As long as I came back to him, we’d be okay.

Yet it was still so hard. I felt tied down and not at the same time. Sure, I could see other people but I just didn’t want to. I’m the type that’s either all in a relationship or not. I couldn’t randomly hook up with another person because they weren’t the one I wanted.

Fanelli explained how our hookup culture influences much of the success to an open relationship. The chances of it actually working out can be very slim.

“Open relationships in college would be an oddity because of the tenor of hooking up,” Fanelli said. “College students want the fancy-free idea of hooking up because students will say, ‘I’m here for four years, there’s lots of opportunity. Why muck up the experience? I got other things to do. Schoolwork. Athletics. Entertainment. I don’t need to settle down.’ The idea of an open relationship means some settling down.”

Many college students are taught not to settle down. We have choices, a seemingly unlimited amount of choices, at the touch of our fingertips. Why settle down when there might be something better out there?

My open relationship didn’t last.

My biggest fear came true when he fell for someone else. It was the one rule I didn’t want him to break, and he did. In turn, I was hurt for a very long time. I grew from it, though. I evaluated what I want in relationships and I know an open one just won’t work for me. That doesn’t mean it can’t for other people.

I believe there’s a powerful component to exclusivity. I also believe that at the end of the day, we’re all searching for the same thing: a human connection.

Isabella Ong is a sophomore television, radio and film major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. She can be reached on Twitter @isabella_ong.

Published on April 20, 2016 at 9:02 pm