I’ve heard it all.

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend!” you say. “Yeah, she’s at the Westchester campus,” I reply, wondering what it’ll be this time. 

“Westchester? Oh, good one, buddy, I get what you mean,” you respond, and wink at me. I force a laugh, and sigh to myself. At least the inside jokes are preferable to when I’m openly mocked, or when you people try to be “understanding” or say you “sympathize” with me. The truth is, I have a wonderful girlfriend and we’re very happy together — so why won’t any of you believe me?

I know the existence of the Westchester campus is highly questioned here at Fordham Lincoln Center, but you’re all wrong. You say there hasn’t been a sighting of a student or faculty member from Westchester in recent memory. Not true — I see my girlfriend all the time, she’s just too shy to introduce herself to anyone, that’s all.

You say the picture of one side of one building that’s the only visual Fordham uses in all material about Westchester offers no proof that there’s actually a physical campus. Wrong again — I’ve personally spent quite a bit of time on campus with my girlfriend, and any Snap Map screenshots that supposedly show me holed up in my McMahon apartment playing video games when I was definitely with my girlfriend at Westchester are simply fake news.

You say that even if Westchester does exist, it’s for Professional and Continuing Studies and grad students only, and there’s no way I’m dating someone more than six years my senior. Well, maybe she’s just very gifted and skipped a lot of grades, did you ever think of that? Did you consider that, just perhaps, she might be going to their branch of Gabelli? Is it so hard to imagine that a liberal arts student and a business student might meet and fall in love? 

It’s a pity that you’re so jealous of what we have that you find it necessary to deny the very existence of Westchester, when you could instead experience the wonder of its very real features for yourselves. A candlelit dinner at the Boar’s Head Deli is the most romantic destination a young couple can ask for, provided it’s before 6 p.m. on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. The pond and stream on the grounds that Fordham absolutely isn’t lying about are perfect for extracurricular rendezvous, especially in the spring. Even the faculty are wonderful and supportive, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for suspecting that everyone supposedly associated with the campus is actually the beneficiary of a money-laundering scheme designed to funnel federal funding into the pockets of Fordham’s higher-ups.

Sometimes it’s difficult to face all the naysayers and nonbelievers, but the support I get from my wonderful and very real girlfriend keeps me going. During our nightly FaceTime calls, which are definitely the reason that you don’t see me at parties even though I totally get invited to them all the time, she always manages to cheer me up. When I walk with her through the beautiful forests of Westchester, the jeers of “That campus doesn’t exist,” “Why do you keep lying about this?” and “You haven’t even mentioned her name or what she looks like this whole time” just seem to fade away.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy tonight — and no, of course I’m not watching Netflix alone, why would you think that, I don’t even have an account. I’m going to facetime my girlfriend at the Westchester campus, both of which absolutely exist, and I’ll leave the rest of you single losers to yearn for what we definitely have.