There really is no reason to hate date functions. Free alcohol, lots of friends and a chance to change location for a night (unless you are frequenting Down Under for the fifth time in one week) are all reasons to love the date function dynamic. My only complaint: Finding the actual date.
First of all, I am a girl, and in my world, I was always told it was the guy's job to ask me on dates. Secondly, as I get older and more involved in University life, it takes a lot more effort to find a person eligible for date status. This seems odd, I understand, because my age and the length of time I have been around the University should provide a significant number of people I know who could possibly provide an evening of companionship.
Well, they don't, and I am starting to wonder why.
Let's step back for a moment with a hypothetical situation: You're sitting at a bar, ordering a drink and find yourself in conversation with the person next to you. You have never met this attractive person before, and you find the conversation overwhelmingly exhilarating to the point where you glue yourself to your seat despite the frustrated grunts of the thirsty people waiting around you. You get a name, maybe even give your number, and walk home with a new hope in your dating life.
Then it happens. You call your friend or tell your roommate you just met an awesome guy, throw out his name and pretty soon you learn everything you would ever want to know about him -- the kind of info it would typically take three years of dating and a really open mother with scrapbooks to find out.
You are a second, third or fourth year, and everyone seems to know everyone else and everything about them.
See, my first year was amazing. Everything was new, exciting and exceeded every expectation I ever had of my number one college choice. I met amazing people and made friendships that have gotten me through tough times and are assured to last beyond my stay here. Nevertheless, time has allowed for certain novelties of this life to wear off.
The majority of us came to college with one or two friends from high school and didn't know a fair number of the 13,000 other people here. Going out each night and meeting new people, hanging out and getting to know them was fun and thrilling. Eventually, though, we have found ourselves with a year or two under our belts, and relationships are not as superficial as they once were. Time has made people and the University less mysterious.
The majority of female students on Grounds know that at any given moment she can meet someone and in five minutes know everything about him from his first year girlfriend to his blood type. This school may seem large, but the truth is, people tend to stick with what has become comfortable. These circles seem to get smaller and smaller. It's like going to Cheesecake Factory where there is a 25-page menu with too many options, so you end up eating the same thing every time you go.
So it's no surprise that after a few semesters and rendezvous to boot, a person may find herself feeling a little boxed in. Asking a date to a party gets harder each go around because so-and-so is the ex-boyfriend or enemy of another girl who will be there. Or you had a tête-à-tête with John Doe you would rather forget, or, let's be honest, you did forget.
Not to mention that you could be officially tagged as off limits for romantic perusal by a group of friends simply because you kissed or dated -- hey, in some cases simply know -- a person in that group. In effect, you're branded as off-limits because of some sort of connection in your past.
All of a sudden an entire fraternity may avoid you like the plague, all because you once dated a brother. Whether it's loyalty or too many assumptions on the part of the non-pursuers, the fact remains, one date or a few months of dating has the potential to put you on a list different from the one checked at the door.
Plus, the information you score from friends about your new interest is probably not all true. Believe it or not, it takes getting to know this person yourself to really know if he is a jerk, a poor kisser or a bad date. We all know that the info flying around about us may not be accurate. Surely we would want someone else to take the time to find out, instead of assuming from stories, associations with groups, sororities or fraternities or comments from an ex-boyfriend.
Needless to say, it is absolutely frustrating and seems totally unfair when you feel that you, among thousands of people, are option-less. It is almost as if general loyalty or faith in friends, their friends and potential friends keep us from pursuing what we really want and what could work out to be a great relationship.
What I am trying to say is this: By our very nature of being human, we get settled into smaller groups of people and in doing so, we can find comfort and great friendships. At the same time, we can put ourselves at a disadvantage by allowing those relationships to dictate other potential ones or to keep us from branching out.
When we think about the situation, it begs the question of why we allow this to happen. How many times in your life are you going to be around this many people who have as much in common with you as there are here, at the school we all chose for various but similar reasons? There are too many options to be boxed in, to make this world small and to spend days wondering how you are going to find a date without offending anyone and avoiding people you have "heard" about.
So my proposition as we begin a new semester is this: Maybe we should go ahead and take that call from the guy at the bar, give it a shot, learn for ourselves and not always listen to what we hear or attend to who he knows, dated or hooked-up with as the final decree of his personality. Let's try new things, instead of always ordering our most familiar meal just because the amount of possibilities seems overwhelming.
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