5 Reasons The End Of January Is Peak Breakup Season For College Relationships

I was doing some very lazy researching, and stumbled across a few graphs that charted what time of year breakups are most common. #Peakbreakupseason, in fact, happens to be around the beginning/middle of March. “Spring cleaning,” it’s allegedly called.

The stats temporarily bummed me out, given that I was planning to write an article (this article), about why the end of January is prime breakup time on college campuses. Then I remembered that college is notorious for “not being real life,” and that the majority of college doesn’t have anything in common with normal society. I know this, because this past Saturday I was super pumped to have gone out AND arrive home before 12am, barely even buzzed. If my college self ever got wind of this, he would’ve immediately gone out and purchased a shotgun.

Anyway, since college runs on a bit of a different schedule than the real world, it also has a different breakup graph. If you’re on the fence about where your first semester “thing” is going, here’s a few reasons why you might want to let this silly article influence your love life:

1. New Semester = “Spring Cleaning”

Real world breakups peak around March because March represents a temporal and emotional transition — the weather is warming up, so now is time to explore and break free like Zac Efron & Vanessa Hudgens.

The start of semester #2, arguably, is the spring cleaning of college. You’re amping up for a whole new slate of accomplishments, classes, and ill-advised food blogs. If your new semester goals are made more difficult by staying with your s/o of four months, dragging out the relationship makes no sense for anyone.

2. Winter Break Groove

You’re away for a month, possibly getting in that grove of realizing all the cool shit you could do if you were single. And just as you’re getting into a weird sort of groove, you’re suddenly thrust back into school.

Most schools have now been in session for two weeks or so, which is the acceptable amount of time to think over a breakup to ensure that it’s the right decision pretend to be thinking over a breakup.

3. Looming Valentine’s Day

As the 14th nears, we’re doing all sorts of Ned Starkian preparation rituals. The established narrative is that a guy may dump a girl pre-Valentine’s because she simply doesn’t want to buy her an $150 necklace.

While that’s certainly not false, the bigger implication here is one of precedence — opting to celebrate Valentine’s Day, on either side of the gender coin, is an indication that you’re very much in this. V-Day is one of those things that forces you to go to the next floor of the relationship, even if you’d both rather just hang out on the first floor for a little bit longer.

A few weeks beforehand (now), these sorts of thoughts are gonna start to creep. For everyone’s sake, it may be best to cut ties now.

4. Abroad/Jobs

For upperclassmen, this represents a very “crucial” time. Staying together through graduation will require a much more serious talk, and continuing the ‘ship post-college may have a very real influence on what you end up deciding to do with your life. If you’re looking to avoid any sort of career/love life dramz, now would be the time to at least talk about what the future is going to hold. Talking, incidentally, is really good at leading to difficult breakups.

Additionally, now is also the time when people return from their life-changing semester abroad. Since this often means you “are a completely new person,” the new you may either (a. want to be single, or (b. be so intolerable, that your partner has no choice but to leave you.

5. Maxiumum Overthinking

All of the realities described above (new semester, new you, new slang when you notice the stripes), will generally lead to severe overthinking. Overthinking is really good at ending relationships.