While many say love comes with feelings of warmth, trust and attraction, in the beginning, love is fragile and requires a lot of work to grow. College life can make this especially difficult.

“You meet people here, but you forget that people leave,” Rupert Nacoste, professor of psychology, said. “You have to go. You had goals before you met that person.”

Students come from different places with different destinations, Nacoste added.

“[Couples] can be together for two years,” Nacoste said. “But at the end of their schooling career they have to look at each other and say, ‘Uh, now what?’”

While in college, some students try maintaining long-distance relationships. And after college, graduates face a similar predicament. However, these can be difficult for both people in the relationship.

“Long-distance relationships are always at risk of failing,” Nacoste said. “Relationships require interaction, face-to-face, if you don’t have face-to-face interactions then you just have encounters.”  

And Skype doesn’t count.

“I didn’t say face-to-Skype, I said face-to-face,” Nacoste said. “They are [at N.C. State] with 36,000 people about the same age and [with the] same sexual motivation … They always have to hold themselves in check. You can’t keep the girl sitting next to him from saying, ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ every day.”

Nacoste has studied human relationships since 1978, and he said college students may also struggle in relationships because of maturity.

“Young couples are fighting over movies, that’s ridiculous, just say yes or no and move on,” Nacoste said. 

However, society is also another challenge love must overcome to survive.

“We are in a time where there are no dating rules, there has been a shift,” Nacoste said.

“We used to live in a marriage system, but now we live in a relationship system; people are just spending time together for intimacy.”

Although, Nacoste said he has some reservations about college relationships, he said if they are going to work, they require an understanding of the realities of the college environment.

“If you aren’t realistic, then everybody is just going to get hurt,” Nacoste said. “You have to want to learn things about yourself and your limitations. It’s tough for college students not just because they are young but because of the social environment being purely physical in its motivations.”

Love: A fantastical fantasy that happens when two people have fallen for each other romantically and trust each other fully.  A time in one’s life that is filled with twinkling eyes and unconditional love.  Just one look at that special someone and your heart flutters.

But sometimes it’s just that-—a fantasy.