At a bar in Kansas City, I ran into an ex-boyfriend who asked me if I was single. It made me sad to answer no – and not just because he’s cute.Even though I’m currently in a relationship, more or less, in my last year of college, I have always been someone who has loved being single and free – and for good reason.

I barely have time for a boyfriend my senior year of college; it amazes me how people have made time for relationships their freshman year, a time of transition into an entirely different environment.

College life has so many aspects that should be priorities in a student’s life, such as friends, extracurricular activities – and I may or may not be referring to beer pong tournaments. And, oh, I don’t know, maybe students should make that little thing I like to call “school” a priority.

It’s not fair to put a boyfriend or girlfriend on the backburner to experience all that college has to offer. It leads to a difficult relationship and, chances are, a sticky breakup.

Translation: It leads to a more stressful life in general.

What’s worse is if the boyfriend or girlfriend is the first and foremost priority. All of the experiences a student should have seem less likely to happen.

I’ve made my closest, lifelong friends in college. These four, five or seven years should be the best in people’s lives, and these past three years have been the best years of mine.

I’m glad to have been able to spontaneously go to Austin and Lubbock on weekends and come back with stories that start off with: “Yeah, we met these guys at a gas station and ended up at their house. I ended up exchanging screen names with one of them – don’t ask how or why. Turns out my roommate went to high school with him.”

Not only has the single life provided me with stories that are probably better suited for my friends and not so much my future children, I know myself so well.

College is a time when people should be able to figure out themselves and what they want in life. I know what I don’t want in a friend; I know what I do want.

I learned to be real and embrace who I am and what is important to me, which, today, happens to be Fuzzy’s Tacos.

Adrienne Lang is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Olathe, Kan.