College Stories. My Girlfriend Is Too Naive--- Free Direct

And then she said something that broke my brain.

I stared at her.

We met during syllabus week. She sat next to me in a 300-person Intro to Psych lecture and actually introduced herself with her full name and her hometown. Nobody does that. You sit down, you stare at your laptop, and you pray the person next to you doesn’t try to share your armrest. But Emily offered me a piece of spearmint gum and asked if I’d ever thought about how weird hands are. College Stories. My Girlfriend Is Too Naive--- Free

That’s when I realized I had it backwards. I thought I was protecting her. But she was protecting me. She was the one pulling me back from the ledge of cynicism that college so eagerly pushes you toward.

“You know,” she said quietly, “I’m not naïve because I don’t know how the world works. I’m naïve because I know exactly how it works, and I’ve decided it’s too exhausting to live like that.” And then she said something that broke my brain

My girlfriend, Emily, is too naïve for college. And I mean that with every ounce of love and terror in my heart.

She still leaves her laptop open in the library when she goes to the bathroom. She still Venmos strangers for “concert tickets” before they hand her the tickets. She still believes that the group project will be different this time. She sat next to me in a 300-person

Even if that means losing five bucks to the penny tray once in a while.