By Dinah Alobeid

As if moving to a new city, meeting new people and beginning college classes wasn’t hard enough freshman year, many new students face the stresses of relationship woes. They have to cope with long-distance relationships, new-found sexual freedom or losing the one he or she loves. Some find romance the moment they set foot on campus, while others feel the need to explore new things and meet new people.

Long-distance lovin’

While many students come to college filled with ideas of new experiences, new friends and finding themselves, others are coming to a new world while leaving behind the one they cherish.

Annie Yingling is an 18-year-old physical therapy major, originally from Westfield, N.J., who is in a serious, long-distance relationship.

“We’ve been officially together since March 2005,” Yingling said.

Her boyfriend, Gregory Spier, is a freshman at Elon University in North Carolina. Yingling said she knew Spier since middle school, but they didn’t “truly meet” until their junior year of high school at a friend’s house.

She said while they talk on the phone every day, having different schedules can be hard.

“It’s challenging sometimes because of our conflicting schedules, and also because there always seem to be people around while we’re on the phone, which doesn’t allow for private conversations,” Yingling said.

She also said she can’t really see herself with anyone else, and that the relationship is in a good place. But the distance is still an obstacle.

“Missing the person is sometimes worse than being homesick,” she said.

The couple is together during vacations; their homes are in the same town in New Jersey and they both enjoy being active, Yingling said.

“We’ll toss a lacrosse ball together or play tennis. He even tried to help me with surfing this summer. That didn’t work very well,” she said.

As far as making the relationship work, Yingling flew down to visit Spier at school in September and he will be visiting her at Northeastern this weekend.

Pre-emptive strike

England native Matthew Gass’s thoughts on relationships were influenced by one relationship in particular.

The freshman, who moved to Bethesda, Md. at 16, said he has never really been in a long-term relationship. He did, however, have a serious, five-month relationship with a high school senior during his junior year of high school.

“At the end of my junior year, her senior year, we broke up,” said Gass, an English major. “I knew it would happen and it was hard at the time, but it wasn’t a surprise.”

Seeing friends unable to sustain relationships where one was in high school while the other was in college, helped shape his beliefs about what would come of his own relationship, he said.

“I never really planned to carry it on. None of my friends had made that work,” he said.

As for his college love life, Gass said he is open to whatever should happen.

“I never really look for anything, just see what turns up. I’m not actively looking for a long-term relationship,” he said.

Gass said he was also surprised to see so many college students in long-term relationships. His roommate is still seeing his girlfriend from back home and some of his sophomore friends are in long-term relationships with Northeastern students or students attending Boston-area universities.

As for Gass’ ex-girlfriend, he still keeps in contact with her and said they still hang out when she is home from college.

“I didn’t go to high school with her but we had a lot of mutual friends; that’s how we met. I don’t really mind either way because I don’t mind being single,” Gass said.

Honey, I’m here

Grace Turnbull came to school single and quickly found a companion – right next door in Loftman Hall.

“We are kind of together,”the freshman physical therapy major said. “We are not official but we started being with each other, hooking up, the night before classes started and two weeks later we were exclusive.”

Turnbull said she came to college thinking she would wait to see what was out there. She wanted to find a good guy and be in a serious relationship.

“I’m a freshman. I want to do what I want,” said Turnbull, an Ocean City, N.J. native, of the way she felt when first coming to school. The fact that he lives next door to her can keep her from homework or studying.

“It is definitely distracting having him next door,” Turnbull said. “Every time I’m bored I go over there and he’s always willing to do something – take a walk, listen to music or just talk.”

Her dating history includes a serious relationship that she ended at the beginning of her senior year. Turnbull said she casually dated different people the rest of the year, but none of those situations were serious. She also had a summer fling that ended when she came to college.

“I knew it wasn’t going anywhere,” Turnbull said.

The couple talks seriously about having a long-term relationship, Turnbull said, and she thinks they will be official soon.

“We talk about it a lot. We talk about having a serious relationship and about what we are now. I think soon it will be official.”

On-again, off-again

Scarlett Trillia started her freshman year this September in what she called “a single mindset.”

After having been with her boyfriend, Logan, throughout high school, they broke up when he moved to college in the fall of 2004.

“Whenever he would come over for Christmas and vacations we would be together,” said Trilla, an 18-year-old undecided major. “When he came back for the summer we got back together, so I guess we’re on and off dating each other.”

The pair met through mutual rowing friends and both dealt with strict crew team schedules.

“We justified not doing anything by doing nothing together,” she said.

Trillia said the bond between the two grew through related experiences.

“We bonded over [rowing]. We spent a lot of time napping after we both got home from regattas every weekend. I guess that’s why we were so comfortable with each other.”

But the couple’s families are good friends and while each was traveling with their families in Europe, they met up and were allowed to travel together for ten days by themselves. Experiences such as this, as well as taking a road trip together this past summer, help strengthen their relationship, Trillia said.

Right now she doesn’t tell people that they are in a relationship, but she said that when they are home they are together. Trillia also said there is no definition for their relationship.

“The way and the amount we talk, and what we talk about suggests we are still together. I have no idea how to think about it,” she said.

Trillia doesn’t date anybody else and finds it hard to relate to east coast males because they have a different mentality from the guys in her hometown of Berkeley, Calif., she said.

“Everyone from my hometown stays in touch with their former boyfriends or girlfriends after they go to college,” she said.

It is difficult for Trillia to see herself with anyone else or to stop comparing every guy she meets to Logan, she said.

“When I meet guys I’m like, OK, you’re cool but you’re not Logan. I compare everyone I meet to him,” she said.