You love me today, will you love her tomorrow?

I skipped a day of uni because I wanted to binge watch Off-Campus. Somehow, for the first time since I stopped being a teenager, I could watch a high-school romance/drama without furrowed eyebrows and a crinkled forehead (a small win for the Botox budget). What I love most about shows like Off-Campus with multiple distinctive characters and personalities of their own, is the plethora of avenues they bring for discussion. For weeks after Off-Campus, almost all of my girlfriends near and far indulged in ‘So what girl are you? Are you a Garrett Girl or Dean Girl?’ I didn’t let the ‘act your age’ internal dialogue stop me from giggling with girlfriends, voluntarily searching for fan edits and doing BuzzFeed-like quizzes online. Off-Campus made me want to go back to my early 20s and do it all again, maybe differently.

I was a Dean girl

While my girlfriends and I took turns guessing which male character we were all most likely to be into, there were hits and misses in a few cases, not when it came to me. All of my friends, unanimously, in separate one-on-one calls with me told me I was a Dean Girl. Turns out, I am very much a Dean Girl. I had an involuntary muscle twitch on my face that shapeshifted into a giant grin every time he was on screen. I took this information from my friends and let it marinate in my head one evening. Later, with a journal and leftover Pizza Hut beside me, I found myself going down an internal rabbit hole, enjoying a voyeuristic exploration of my thoughts and feelings.

Who is Dean Di Laurentis and how does his character reflect the way I view my own perception of intimacy?

Dean is playful, charming, confident and the best of all, he leaves right before expectations walk in through the door. Or at least he can’t stay longer because Allie won’t let him. There’s just undeniable chemistry without the promise of longevity. Now, that would usually draw people in because of the hot and cold dynamic that Cosmopolitan has probably written multiple theses on – but I don’t think that explains the whole picture. I must admit, I feel a safety in the lack of expectations, the absence of tomorrow, not worrying about who I must continue to be as long as he is around.

I’d like chemistry to last forever, I’d like intimacy to last forever, but I don’t want to stay the same forever

My best friend, while telling me I was a Dean Girl, explicitly called me out for wanting chemistry over commitment. And she’s right. I do love a bit of banter over the bar counter, I like courting and being courted, but Sunday mornings doing laundry together after watching a movie the night before and cuddling to fall asleep, that’s just an inappropriate and unnecessary amount of affection.

If he comes around tomorrow, the next day and the days after, then I might subconsciously stagnate, be the same self for two years because that’s the girl he wants and likes. The thought of it makes me claustrophobic. I’d like chemistry to last forever, I’d like intimacy to last forever, but I don’t want to stay the same forever. I think what I’m afraid of isn’t doing laundry on Sunday mornings, I’m afraid of what will be if I wake up one day and become someone who hates doing laundry together on Sundays.

I lust for a life marked by so many different iterations of myself

Maybe that’s why banter over the bar counter feels so much more exciting. It reminds me that the existing version of me has an expiry date and so I savour the time I’ve got. I lust for a life marked by so many different iterations of myself. I probably view permanence to be laced with stagnation. To a huge degree, I know that isn’t the most objective observation, but I’m not ready to surgically extract that from me right now. The possibility of not being able to evolve makes me queasy and before I teach myself that true intimacy lasts through years and not just seasons, I want to acknowledge how important growing and changing is to me.

Perhaps there are others who recognise this strange cocktail of yearning for intimacy while simultaneously fearing what permanence might demand from them. But there is hope. Maybe one day you’ll still find Garrett attractive when he’s promising a lifetime of love to Hannah. Maybe you’ll become comfortable with intertwining longevity, love and evolution, and maybe that takes time. It isn’t about choosing one version of yourself to commit to. In fact, you don’t have to. It’s just time for us to stop seeing ourselves as fragmented pieces of a mosaic and get comfortable with the idea that every version of us still belongs to the same picture.