Confusion, angst plague Yale dating scene

"I just want a boyfriend." The ho-hum sigh of countless Yale women. "I just want to hook-up"—another seemingly impossible desire at Yale. But both these requests usually begin a long tirade on why the opposite sex at Yale sucks. The girls who want boyfriends complain when a hook-up actually calls, and the girls who just want ass never seem to get any. Add to this the fact that the guys at Yale think the girls here are ugly, and the girls think the guys are ugly, and well, you get a lot of unhappy Yalies. Which leads me to wonder, in the dating world at Yale, is there ever a happy medium?

MARISSA BASS/YH

Why does it seem like all the good-looking people are taken? Why does it seem like all the single people are gay? Why are the single straight people weird? And more important, why do we complain so much? I mean, Yale's no Arizona State, but plenty of Yalies are getting lots of play.

Let's imagine: it's Friday night, and for the first time all year, you and your crush are at the same place. Miraculously, you speak to each other. Even more astoundingly, you go home together and—oh, the shame—you spend the night. For many Yalies, two thoughts come to mind immediately: Omigod, he'll never call me, or, Omigod, she'll think we're together. There seems to be no middle ground.

What ever happened to the good old dating scene that college once encompassed? We should be having it better than our parents—Smith girls who came in on the weekend "fuck-truck" to visit their Yale boyfriends. Come on, guys, we're all right here on the same campus! Instead of making the most of it, we're constantly whining about the weirdness of the Yale population.

Why are guys who call or e-mail the day after a hook-up automatically "stalkers," and the guys who don't "jerks"? Why do girls you don't even remember hooking up with want to "get coffee" and girls you adore "just want to be friends"?

The answer I hope we don't find is that we're just never satisfied, or we're looking for perfection. But maybe we are. Doesn't it seem like all Yalies lust after the same five or six hotties? I mean, at the sorority crush parties, how many guys are actually there? Don't we all crush on the same ones?

It would be a real waste of time to search endlessly like Goldilocks for something—or someone—that's "just right." Maybe, in college, we should be dating those who are a "little bit too hot" or a "little bit too cold."

We have the power to make the number of normal Yale hotties increase from five to at least 12 or 13 by taking some initiative. After all, how can they know what we want if we don't tell them? We're so scared of commitment that we don't allow ourselves to fully enjoy a hook-up, so scared of rejection that we write people off before we've given them a chance to call.

Dating allows you to find out what you don't like and what you're looking for. But, for all the clueless guys who don't know how to pick up the phone and dial five numbers (not even seven, just five for the on-campus chicks!), dating becomes impossible when you freak out after a hook-up.

And what's the deal with us women? In class, we're confident that we're equal to, if not better than, our male counterparts. Yet the moment it comes to actually hooking up or dating, we turn meek and submissive, demanding that a guy chase after us. It's absurd. And of course, it's bound to lead to angst and disappointment.

Maybe the best way to enjoy Yale as a potential dating mecca is to relax and have fun. The whole point of dating someone is that you go out, see if you have a good time, and if you do, go out again. Asking for a second date is not the same as saying, "Let's make babies," and moreover, it would be unnatural for anyone to "turn off" all desires for other prospects the moment he or she has a good hook-up. Perhaps we should just go with the flow.

What's the worst thing that can happen? If you don't like the person, you go back to being friends. Dave Matthews should come and sing "Say Goodbye" to every couple who is about to hook up.

Women, we need to get it together, decide what it is we're looking for, and take an active role in making it happen so we can stop whining about what we get. Guys, you need to pick up the phone, be normal, and start giving it to us the way we want it. Oh, and clean up your room so you can actually get to the bed when you bring a hottie home with you. Kristin Kovner is a sophomore in Morse.

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