A friend of mine recently told me she had given up: “I’ll adopt my kids.” She’s a cute, outgoing girl, but hasn’t been on a date in at least a year. She’s worried, disappointed, and sexually frustrated. Yet her situation is not unique, as many of my girl-and guy-friends complain day-in, day-out about their love lives, or lack thereof.
Entitled “Freshmen to Go on Date,” a Student Libel article last spring mocked Washington University’s hook-up culture. A recent study by the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative women’s group, confirmed that nationally, college students frequently hook-up, but rarely date. As a freshman, I observed (and, dare I say, participated in) this phenomenon. But, at the time, I was not particularly concerned. After all, we were new here, out to meet people, explore our options, and determine what-and who-we’re interested in. Today, as an upperclassman, I have a little bit more wisdom-turns out juniors don’t date either-and a different perspective. Despite being a “shady frat guy,” I’ve had enough with Washington University’s nonexistent dating scene.
Why do few students commit to a relationship? More importantly, why do even fewer students commit-or ask one another-to go on a date? Girls and guys each offer separate explanations, generalizations really, for our culture, but both understanding and change must begin at the individual level. That means you.
In early August, while we worked out at a Boston-area sports club, a friend of mine expressed eager anticipation for his final year of college: “Senior girls are even easier than freshmen! They’re scared they won’t be able to find someone when they enter the `real-world.'” That may or may not be true (and there are those of you who probably can’t wait to find out) but, by all accounts, post-collegiate dating is rough. Nine-to-fivers aren’t afforded as many opportunities to meet people, and nowhere else will you find guys and girls as ready, willing or able. If you’ve ever been told to take advantage of college, the four-year (or in the case of my counterpart Corey Harris, five-year) party, realize dating should be as much a part of the experience as is doing stuff our parents said that we shouldn’t. Prioritize getting drunk behind getting busy.
Speaking of getting busy, I often hear students say they don’t have the time for a relationship. Indeed, a friend warned me today, “Yoni, you’re involved in too many activities. How can you expect to meet a girl? It takes time.” Caught up in classwork and pre-occupied with extracurriculars, they (previously we) claim to be too busy to devote significant time to a significant other. Perhaps. But maybe we accumulate these activities in response to our “single lives.” Unable to fill our time in the comfort of another, we create the “Emergency Support Team,” the “Progressive Action Coalition” and a “Student Union.” I believe that given the right person, each of us could, and would, make time.
But even students willing to admit they’d make time often qualify the statement. They’d make time for the right girl or the right guy. Problem is, around age twenty, few of us know who that right person is. And can you blame us? How am I supposed to know what to look for in a girl if I haven’t gone on enough dates to know which characteristics I desire in the first place? Maybe we ought to stop searching for the one we’ll take down the aisle and begin looking for someone to take to a movie tomorrow night.
Earlier in this column, I suggested we partake in student activities as a means of occupying our time in the absence of a girlfriend of boyfriend. If this is the case, then I am part of an organization that should be renamed “Students without Lives” and each of us staffers joined the paper so that we might write about the news rather than make it. For my sake, let’s hope that, at least with respect to the topic of this column, this will not be the case. Check back with me in a couple weeks. Or better yet, ask me to update you on my progress over dinner.