Some of the most important decisions in a person’s life have to do with the one they love. ?Or at least, the one they think they love.

?A lot of this confusion starts when we leave to go to college. ?We leave to pursue our careers, and in turn we leave our parents, siblings, friends and pets, and some of us even leave behind our significant others. ?It’s hard to determine whether or not you should leave your significant other behind when you go to college, but it’s definitely not a decision that is impossible.

?I’m sure love might have something to do with it.

At the time in your life when you’re beginning college it is hard to tell what love is. Some students believe they have it figured out, but these are the students that usually need the most help.

Most students go to college around the age of eighteen without knowing anymore than what they learned in the closed environment of their high school. ?It doesn’t matter if you’re from a high school in downtown Los Angeles or from one in Iowa, there are things you just can’t learn in high school. With limited experience and knowledge, it is impossible to know whether or not the person you met in high school is the right one for you.

You simply haven’t experienced enough in life yet.

?So, how do you gain the experience to find out who it is you love? ?You don’t have to be a (wo)man-whore to find out. ?The only thing you really need to do is be open-minded and meet new people. ?At one of the mostdiverse universities around it shouldn’t be hard.

There is one thing that needs to be done before you can go around meeting new people. ?You still have to deal with what’s back home. ?You can’t leave the one from high school hanging. ?Let them know that you are not at the time in your life where you want to settle down with someone.

Tell them that you need to experience your life before you decide what it is you want.

?It’s not easy to let go of the one (or more) from high school, but it’s not easy to make the right decisions sometimes. ?This is one of those hard decisions that you need be right on, because there are some dire consequences to being wrong.

?If you stay with your high school sweetheart through college, you eliminate the possibility of experiencing a lot of new things; it’s settling down before you got up on your feet. ?To be in love when you are eighteen is to sell yourself short.

If you really believe that you love the one you were with in high school, then that love should still be there after you’ve experience more of life.

If, after all you’ve been through in college, you are still thinking about the one you loved in high school, then you ?know it’s real and you can move on with your relationship from there. ?

If it wasn’t meant to be, then you will only realize that more and more as you go on with your life and try out all those things that you are still unaware of.

Comments on this article can be e-mailed to lauren.robeson.79@csun.edu.