12 STEPS ON HOW TO DATE A MEDICAL STUDENT
1. Don’t expect to see them. Ever. Like seriously.
2. Accept the fact they will have many affairs…. with their books.
3. Learn to hide your “yucks & gross” reactions when they tell you all the stuff you never wanted to know about your body.
4. Support them when they come home after each test, upset because they failed—and gently remind them after they get their well above passing grade how unnecessary the “I’m going to fail out of medical school and never become an MD” dramas.
5. Each week they will have a new illness. Some will be extremely rare, others will be more mundane. But it doesn’t matter. They will be certain they have it. Med school can, and will, turn even the sanest into a hypochondriac. Date them for long enough, and you’ll become one too.
6. They’ll make you hyper-aware that germs are everywhere and on everything. Even though you used to eat foods with your bare hands, and sit on your bed in the same clothes you just wore the whole day, or sat on a public bench in, you’ll become far too disgusted to ever do it again. And when you witness others perform these same acts that, before you began dating your med student, you spent your entire life doing too, you’ll wince and wonder, “Eww! How can they do that? Don’t they know how many germs they are spreading?”
7. Romantic date = Jollibee take-out in front of the TV on their 10-minute study break.
8. A vacation together consists of a trip downtown to National Bookstore for new highlighters, pens or books.
9. Their study habits will make you feel like a complete slacker. For them, hitting the books 8-to-10 hours a day is not uncommon, nor difficult. You’ll wonder how you ever managed to pass school on your meager one hour of studying per night.
10. They are expected to know everything. Everything! The name of the 8 billion-lettered, German sounding cell that lives in the depths of your inner ear or the technical term for the “no one’s ever heard of this disease” disease that exists only on one foot of the Southern tip of the African continent.
11. “My brain’s filled with so much information, I can’t be expected to remember that!“ will be the standard excuse for forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, and others.
12. You’ll need friends with unending patience who pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints.