The daughter of a romance novelist, I grew up with a strong notion of romance. Throughout high school, I dated a few guys, who all took me out and met my parents and kissed me after the second rendezvous. Then I came to Washington University. What the hell happened?

Let me tell you about the new fashion romance. First of all, it’s entirely inadequate. I’m not quite sure if this ‘new fashion’ is across the board at colleges and universities, but unfortunately, it has made its home at Wash U.

There are defining features of this type of relationships. To begin, there is no second date first kiss. You know, the queasy stomach, uncomfortable but entirely exhilarating moment when you know he’s leaning in. Instead there is the drunken hook up. In the morning you flip over because of your pounding headache only to discover a definitely not good looking man (because, hey, this is Wash U) snoring in your bed. Somehow he seemed good looking last night and his utterance “damn, you’re hot” seemed so sweet and sincere. But in the morning things appear in a totally different light. And the sad thing is, he probably feels the same way.

After the hook up, you may never see him again, except perhaps for at the occasional house party where you duck into the bathroom while he rounds the bend. Or you might chase him around, only to find that the harder you look the scarcer he becomes. On the bright side, you might just find out you actually like this person you carelessly hooked up with. However rarely, it does happen. You might even date him. This is where the second part of ‘new romance’ comes in.

Dating at Wash U is practically nonexistent. A good friend of mine dated a Wash U boy for five months, in which time she did not go on one actual “date” with him. Not even one. They were together through Christmas and into Valentine’s Day. He offered to get Chinese take out and watch a movie. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned clich‚s of roses at the door and getting dolled up for one night of bliss? This lack of dating is definitely not an isolated incidence. Many of my friends have “dated” guys when no dating was involved. Somehow in their Neanderthal minds bringing their significant other Bear’s Den and grumbling “I’m low on points now” merits an overemphasized smile and a huge thank you kiss. Yeah, right.

And Wash U isn’t the only university where this type of relationship lurks. In fact, this relationship style seems to be across the board, yet I would speculate that Wash U is worse than most.

I mean come on, some of these boys never even touched a girl before college and now they are “adequate catches.” The concept is so foreign and miraculous to them that they are willing to blow their stuff on the first girl without sideburns that drunkenly stumbles over them. And since the guys are so damned popular at this unattractive little school, they take advantage of the no effort hook ups and no effort relationships.

Call me old fashioned, but I cannot wait for the day when someone picks me up in his car, drives me to a restaurant that costs more than $5.99 for a value meal (oh joy!), and asks to kiss me goodnight. Yes, I am aware that I’m delusional.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 11th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.