Our relationship began May 14, and it’s been rocky ever since.

At first, we really didn’t know how to interact with each other. This might be because I used to hate the object of my affections, rolling my eyes at any mention. I swore I’d never fall for the trappings of Twitter, but somehow, even I have succumbed to its charms.

My flirtation with Twitter started three months earlier at the Ohio Newspaper Association’s Collegiate Newspaper Competition when a speaker addressed its usefulness for journalists and other media professionals. I realized that if I wanted to stay on the cutting edge and standout above my peers, I needed Twitter as an ally.

This was a sad, shameful moment for me.

When I sat down to sign up for my first Twitter account in May, it took every ounce of willpower I had to overcome the slightly sick feeling in my stomach. I had been making fun of Twitter since I first heard of it.

“This will make you a better journalist,” I said in my head. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

The old me would’ve argued, “Why? Twitter is a glorified Facebook status updater that most people use for even more pointless garbage than they would on Facebook.”

And there I was, preparing to sleep with the enemy just to get ahead in my career.

In the end, I suppose I’ve succeeded, if not through my personal account, then through The Collegian’s Twitter account. I think.

We’ve attracted 52 followers. I have no idea what that means. Is that good? Kinda good? Or just plain pathetic? I couldn’t tell you, but 52 followers sounds good, right? Granted, one is a business from London, one is an insurance company from Kentucky, and I can’t tell if several others are real people, but hey, who’s counting?

I have high hopes for The Collegian’s Twitter, at least. I’ve been using it to promote our top stories each week and, now that we have a brand new website, our tweets can even include links. As a journalist, I have reached an understanding with Twitter. I now see why everyone else finds it so irresistible.

But when it comes to my personal Twitter, I still haven’t got a clue. If we had a Facebook status, I’d have to go with, “It’s complicated.”

I’ve tweeted a grand total of 47 times over the past six months, and that’s not even legitimate because I retweet other people’s tweets almost as often as I bother to come up with original content. 12 of those retweets were from The Collegian’s account, which I pretty much run, so basically I’m cheating.

Two tweets were about Twitter and how much I don’t understand it. We were fighting on those days.

My actual relationship, all metaphors aside, did do some good for my affair with Twitter, since six tweets have been about my boyfriend.

The rest were an eclectic bunch of thoughts, escaped from my mind, usually with a tilted head and squinted eyes as I tried to decipher whether they were valid tweets or not. A few were rants, a few were informational and a few tried to be funny.

At the end of the day, I just shrug, and keep on tweeting, hoping someday Twitter and I figure out what we really mean to each other.