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Campus Scenes

Dating is Dead

by Dani Phillips

June 24, 2018

In college, it’s conventional for one to meet their significant other at a bar or frat party. They exchange numbers and maybe go home together. He might text her, “hey did you get home okay,” afterwards, to which she would respond, “yeah thanks see you around!” A week or so later one might text the other asking if they’re going out tonight, they meet up, and so it goes. Eventually, after painstaking weeks or months of ‘what are we.’ the couple finally defines the relationship. And that is just the way things are.

This wasn’t always the primary way college students would form relationships. There was a time where the guy sitting next to you in Chemistry would spend days working up the courage to ask you on a date — a real date, in a coffee shop or Italian restaurant. Sadly, guys must now jump through hoops to get a girl to hang out with them without labeling such as ‘a date.’ They ask girls to study with them in the library, meet at a bar, or come over to watch the basketball game, and often alcohol is involved. This is so run of the mill that anything significantly diverging from this social standard is perceived as odd and unusual.

One of my roommates this year kept encountering the same guy on her walks back from class. She knew of him. She had seen him when she attended parties at his fraternity, but they had never conversed. One day, she received an Instagram request from him and accepted, thinking nothing of it. A few minutes later, he messaged her saying that he found it funny how they kept running into each other and thought that maybe they could get coffee or lunch sometime. The message was immediately sent in our roommates group text followed by question marks. Ideas started emerging amongst the group offering explanations for the odd coffee date request: perhaps he’s a rep for some business and needs to meet with a certain number of people, you’ve probably made out with him and just don’t remember, maybe he’s kidding, someone stole his phone, or maybe he’s just weird. No one thought to offer the obvious explanation: maybe he just likes you.

She ended up going on the coffee date, and it went well. They talked about classes and got to know one another without the pressure of going home with each other right after. There was no need to down another shot to get rid of the butterflies. She said it was easy.

Most girls you talk to say that they want to find a nice boy who takes them on dates and isn’t just in the relationship for the so called benefits. Unfortunately, when these opportunities present themselves, they are often viewed as strange and outlandish. As a result, guys stick to the more casual means of spending time with a girl in whom they have interest and girls often are confused where they stand with said boy. People are scared to be different and break social “normals.”   Most just want to fit in. College is the final pathway into adulthood, so it’s important that students stop behaving like children and take the next step by embracing a more open and honest way of meeting people, as crazy and different as it may seem.

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