“Cows don’t care who they date,” Iowa State’s coordinator of residence life said to a group of ISU students Monday night.

But people do care who they date. People are involved in relationships and there are certain expectations, Residence Life Coordinator Sally Deters, said during in a program on healthy relationships.

Deters said she usually does the program four times a year. She’s presented it for 15 years now. This time, the program was arranged by Jill Batey, resident assistant of Fosmark House in Oak Hall.

Deters stressed sharing within the group.

One of the first items discussed were the factors that make up a healthy relationship. Participants presented answers ranging from trust and honesty to flexibility and communication.

Factors that are not positive and would make an unhealthy relationship, such as jealousy, selfishness, controlling behavior, lack of individuality and physical or verbal abuse were also discussed.

In an unhealthy relationship, we tend to “put a bubble around us,” Deters said. “We think it’s OK, and we tolerate it because we do get something positive from the relationship.”

Many of the unhealthy factors enter into people’s relationships, but this is not necessarily bad, Deters said.

“Most of us have relationships that have both of these things,” Deters said. For example, most people in a relationship experience jealousy at one time or another.

Deters said in an unhealthy relationship, it is possible to change the significant other. But if there is too much required change, you should “look on the horizon where there’s lots of stars.”

The way people model relationships was also discussed.

“We model our relationships on what we see on a routine day,” Deters said. Parental relationships have a tendency to mold what children do in a relationship, she added.

Deters concluded with three pieces of advice: Give the relationship the credit it deserves, it is necessary to “like” someone first, and don’t ever date anyone you’d never marry.