After being in college for just one semester, I have noticed an appalling trend of cheating among couples in long distance relationships. Its no longer surprising to figure out that the guy you met at the bar a few nights ago has a girlfriend of 3+ years. It breaks my heart and shocks me to think that these people don't realize the great impact cheating leaves on their significant other. Only a few months fresh out of a long term relationship ended by unfaithfulness, the simple thought of cheating becoming a modern day relationship trend makes me sick to my stomach. Never in my life would I ever want someone to feel the way I felt after I found out what was going on 2,000 miles away from me.

It is so unfortunate that people nowadays dismiss cheating like its nothing. Guys and their friends turn a blind eye to their buddy hooking up with a girl in the next room, knowing there is another on the other end waiting for a text back. Girls see their girlfriends making moves on guys, leading them into an emotional attachment with each other, knowing there is another on the other end waiting for a phone call at the end of the night. If people only knew the immense pain and suffering one experiences from unfaithfulness, I would like to think that the trend would hopefully become less and less popular.

While I would like to think that I have grown and moved on from my past situation, I can’t help but to notice subtle things in my life that are stained from the spill of my past lover’s mess they left on my life. Unfortunately I have learned that trust issues are much more than something sung about in Drake songs, they are a real thing that changes your relationship with people. Suddenly your guard becomes 10 walls thicker, stronger, and less likely to be broken down. Negative assumptions about people arise in my mind before positive ones, because nothing can be as good as they seem. And tragically my emotional response threshold has changed into a general numbness about things that used to make me overjoyed, giddy, and enlightened. While I may think the pain is gone, I can’t help to think that my heart may be forever changed from the battle it has been put through.

The past month after my heartbreak has been crucial in me discovering how to deal with such a deep pain. A pain that is confusing, abstract, and piercing. I try not to think about it too much but I find myself making decisions based on what has poisoned me in the past, and some are not the best for my soul. I will forever be perplexed by the casual idea of cheating that flows through society, because I can tell you right now, cheating does much, much more than just hurt a person, it scars them.

“She wasn’t bitter. She was sad though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.” -Stephen Chbosky