Legally in Love: The Pitfalls of BLSG Dating
Illustration by Shaina Rubin
While BLSGs have their benefits, there is a price to pay for entering this dating arena: post-break up encounters. Waiting for a crowded elevator in the lobby is bad enough, but it gets even worse if you are on a journal together, study in the same library room or sit in the same row for class that semester. Some students can easily shake off these awkward encounters and continue going about their day. For others, these constant run-ins are quite unbearable.
It is possible to work things out with your post-BLSGs: you force yourself to be friendly, civil and professional (though the occasional flirty Gchat won’t cause too much damage). One can even practice those legal drafting skills by writing up a contract stating what locations and groups of friends each party is allotted to at any given point in the semester.
My favorite method of defining these terms requires a healthy dose of courage: meet them outside of the confines of 250 Joralemon for a heart-to-heart. Even with the “goggles” factor, we’re talking about a person with whom you were once intimate. Personally, rather than receive confusing and impersonal text messages, I prefer a candid conversation full of uncomfortable eye contact and body language. I may sweat profusely and stumble on my words, but my subsequent run-ins with my post-BLSGs are effortless and amicable.
Whether this method will work for you depends on the BLSG at hand, for there will always be one or two experiences that leave you so scarred, no conversation can ever heal the wounds. For instance, every time I try this out with one particular post-BLSG, we end up in a mutually silent standoff. I only wish we were capable of expressing our genuine emotions in a sober state of mind, and could work toward maintaining a friendship in the little time we have left.
Thankfully, this one outlier has not stopped me from looking for new potential BLSGs. Having someone to flirt with and discuss my law student woes always brightens my day. Of course it won’t last forever – all good things must come to an end. Thus, it is essential to have a post-BLSG plan ready to go for when the inevitable fallout ensues.
I’ve dated one BLS person before. His/her affections turned quickly and suddenly without explanation, despite my efforts to have a discussion for “closure” or whatever.
In conclusion, don’t date lawyers(-to-be). They’re unable to act like real people.
I agree…many lawyers (to be) are unable to act like “real” people. I wonder if it’s because we are undergoing a pseudo-high school experience, or if all of this briefing and debating makes us incapable of expressing actual emotions (probably a mixture of both).
[...] out, getting sloshed, and showing off my dance moves to the best of my non-legal abilities. The tension between old BLSGs culminates as we eye each other across the dance floor, while new BLSGs are [...]