During the Real Talk we had with Andrew, it was quite obvious that we had all gathered for an awkward conversation. I was surprised to see that so many people were attending, however not surprised when Andrew explained how open-ended our conversation would be and no one was willing to raise their hand.

I think it was awkward not because of the topic itself, but because everyone has a different perspective on love and relationships and no one knows or feels comfortable approaching such a topic unless they know from what angle their listeners are approaching from, or if they really don’t care. And in a room as crowded as that, no one would know where to begin.

I decided to take the latter route, seeming that not many people wanted to speak up, because I’ve wondered about the perspectives of others from things like messaging other genders (where’s the line between friendly and flirty) and relationships versus hookups. Our conversation swerved from very direct, very crude honesty to simple questions about perspective. And we seemed to constantly jump from one topic to the other rather than indulge in something, because again- everyone has different perspectives and are things different things. However, one conversation that stuck with me was when a girl brought up how a relationship doesn’t inhibit a person from feeling attraction towards others. “It’s not like once you start dating someone, suddenly everyone else turns ugly”. But that it is the way you choose to stay loyal in a relationship that differentiates your significant other from the others. Overall, I was glad to have attended this event and hear what others had to say, despite our topics being all over the place. But that was only a direct reflection of how complicated this topic can get.