Dating is tough. There are plenty of cute guys at this University who catch my eye. There are something like 6,000 male undergraduates, so I really can’t complain about my options — and who’s to say I’d rule out most graduate students, either? So anyway, I’m having no trouble finding plenty of potential matches, which I guess is the first step, but then what’s the next? The hardest part for me is knowing where that invisible line is, the one dividing the friends from the more than friends, dividing the boy-space-friends from the boyfriends, dividing the “Yeah, I like her” from the “Yeah, I like like her.” What’s the difference between flirting and just being friendly? When do you know that the opposite party wants to take it one step further?
In television and the movies, when a guy catches a girl’s attention, all she has to do is make eye contact, look back down, then look up again with fluttering eyelashes and a coy smile. Maybe she can even bite her lower lip a little bit. That’s how the guy can tell that the girl is interested. Then he walks over and buys her a drink. They make witty small talk, fall in love and the rest, as they say, is history. I feel like I can confidently say that I’ve mastered the eyelash batting and the coy smile, so let me tell you ... it does not work the same way it does in the movies.
When does that exchange happen? That magical exchange when the member of each party realizes that they are meant to be more than just friends?
Okay, I know I sound a bit like Carrie Bradshaw with all of these questions. Give me a break; I was this close to naming my column “SEX AND THE UniverSITY”. (Get it?) But seriously. Advancing a relationship from friends or acquaintances to more than friends can be pretty tough if you don’t know how the other person feels about you. And even when you do find out that they like you, it’s never really in the way you expect.
For example, last semester I was studying with a male friend in his dorm room. We had traded philosophy notebooks so we could skim through each other’s notes for anything that could help us with our final. I scanned down the page, taking in the relevant information when I noticed all of the little sketches up and down the page margins. How cute! They were his doodles from when his mind would wander during class.
Towards the left of the page there was a little drawing of a dolphin swimming underwater. Then to the right there was a stick figure man with a beard and a robe. Hmm, I guessed that was a sketch of Jesus. And then, right at the top center of the page, I saw a stick figure girl with dark hair, a little dress and rectangular-framed glasses.
“Is this a picture of me!?” I burst out without thinking.
He glanced over at the page, flushed bright red and replied “Oh ... uh ... yes.”
Clearly, I had been consuming his thoughts during class. Clearly, he had been daydreaming about me for hours. Clearly, I was at the forefront of all he was thinking about that day. Well, along with Jesus and that dolphin.
“You doodled me? In between Jesus and a dolphin?” I asked.
“Uh. Yeah,” he responded.
“Oh. Cool,” I returned.
With my newfound knowledge that this guy had been thinking about me, I was better prepared to cross that invisible line into “more than” friendship. Three weeks later, we were dating and the rest, as they say, is history.
I understand, however, that this occurrence is rare. I doubt that any of you will be able to sense the opposite sex’s attraction toward you by finding a doodle of yourself in someone’s notebook. (But please, feel free to rip out a few pages and start scanning.) I simply want to tell the guys that if you ever see a girl bite her lip and bat her eyelashes, chances are she likes you a little bit, not that she has something in her eye and a persistent canker sore. Maybe, though, we can forget the whole charade. Maybe, the next time a cute guy or girl catches your attention, you can simply walk up and say “Hey, you want to grab a cup of coffee sometime?” Problem solved.
Jordan’s column runs biweekly Mondays. She can be reached a j.hart@cavalierdaily.com.
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