The bliss of fall, Thanksgiving and reading week are a time for students to finally sit back, relax and watch too much Netflix while not reading at all. However for some students, Thanksgiving is a time to be dreaded. It isn’t so much all of the pointless conversations with distant family members or the ridiculous amount of schoolwork you probably won’t even start.
What many Laurier students fear is the dreaded “turkey dump” that has been said to crush both the hearts and grade point averages of Laurier students who fall victim to this allegedly unstoppable event.
The “turkey dump” is a time in which students in long-distance relationships venture home for Thanksgiving only to return from the break newly single.
There are multiple speculated reasons as to why the “turkey dump” occurs, but these, quite frankly, are all a farce.
There is no denying the spike in singles on campus when it comes to the post-turkey haze of Thanksgiving, however as this phenomenon suggests, you can’t blame your failed relationship on the tryptophan in the turkey. Tryptophan supposedly induces a post-meal session of existential and introspective discovery, causing you to question whether you ever really loved your significant other.
As convenient of an excuse that this may be, we all know you really just have the “hots” for that girl in your EC101 lecture or that cute guy you always see in the dining hall.
When it comes to long-distance relationships, distance may make the heart grow fonder but it’s proximity that makes every other part of you go looking for someone new. The blame gets placed on Thanksgiving and going home for the holidays, but the dump would have come before the turkey if the opportunity presented itself.
No one wants to be that person, the type that ends the relationship over text or the phone. Skype calls these days aren’t as “satisfying” as the they used to be.
In the end, despite post-turkey haze and post-dump depression, you’ll have a fresh slate to start from after Thanksgiving. If you’re a student going into Thanksgiving dreading the “turkey dump,” keep your chin up and be happy knowing that there’s no other work at hand and that it’s not the time of year or the holiday itself contributing to your failed relationship.