Anybody who knows me knows that my mother desperately wants me to get laid.
And by “laid,” of course, she means meet an upstanding young mensch.
My friends just laugh. The only thing more ridiculous than a middle-aged woman telling her daughter to keep her “eyes and zipper open” is this medieval thing called dating. We’ve got one-night stands, sure, and what we like to call WesMarriages. But what about people who aren’t ready to pack the U-Haul but wouldn’t mind seeing each other again? What ever happened to good-old fashioned dating?
Robin*, a sophomore, was initially excited by the prospect of meeting so many people at college. Like many freshmen, she also believed the relationship she began during orientation week would last. She was rudely disappointed, when the boy in question “flipped out,” an understandable reaction from someone who neglected to break up with his girlfriend from home.
Experiences like these seem to be common among freshmen. And there’s more going on than just the complaint that college boys aren’t mature enough to handle relationships. There’s something irresistible about the idea that every stranger one meets on Foss Hill their first day is a potential friend or lover.
Freshman Marissa* is still recovering from disappointment of her own. After a first kiss and two dates, including a star-gazing excursion on Foss Hill, the boy mumbled something about having loose ties back home.
“We hate him,” said Marissa, apparently referring to everyone she knows. “Even Wendy at Summerfields hates him.”
After almost two years of disappointing experiences, Robin says she would like a little less excitement.
“When I think about how this is the time and place when you can find amazing people, I feel discouraged,” Robin said. “It’s nice to be able to flirt with whoever I want but at the same time, I’d like to have just one person to flirt with.”
Not necessarily, according to Lisa Sacerio ’07, who recently broke up with her boyfriend of almost a year. She had been dating Andrew Eppich ’06 since her freshman year when he went abroad this winter. The couple briefly attempted an open relationship, a concept made trendy by thefacebook.com.
“That’s a concept neither of us understood,” Sacerio said. “I feel more comfortable being single than I was with the open relationship.”
If keeping in touch with someone six hours ahead makes intimacy difficult, sharing Wesleyan’s modest campus can be even harder.
“It’s very nice to be with someone on campus but it can also be claustrophobic at times,” Sacerio said.
Although upset, Sacerio is embracing her new status.
“It’s a cliché but I feel freer,” Sacerio said. “I don’t start unconsciously thinking, ‘Well, if I do this I won’t see my boyfriend for such and such amount of time.”
Leah Stern ’06, who is currently studying in Bolivia, appreciates her break from Wesleyan’s fishbowl. She and her boyfriend of two and a half years are trying an open relationship, an idea, not surprisingly, she says her friends don’t understand.
“Relationships at Wesleyan, when they do happen, tend to be more mature because they’re not under the roof of their parents,” Stern said. “[But] they might also be more intense and self-destructive.”
Ellen*, who started dating John* during orientation week, certainly holds a kind of campus record for long-term relationships. Even though she says she never tires of spending time with John, the two plan to have an open relationship when she studies in Argentina next fall.
“I don’t want there to be doubts in our relationship regarding what we’re missing,” Ellen said. “This will be a good chance to get that stereotypical college experience. I’m assuming we’ll get back together.”
On a small campus that fosters these intense WesMarriages, an awkward community of former hookups also starts to grow for some students.
“I wonder if this going to keep expanding,” Marissa said. “Every year I’ll add a new person to this group of people I see around campus.”
These groups seem to be familiar for a lot of people. The only alternative to a serious relationship often seems to be casual hookups. If not intimacy, you’re likely to be left with a one-night stand.
“Wesleyan’s not a culture conducive to dating,” said David*, a junior. “It’s more geared toward hookups. It’s unfortunate because you get romantic training in life from formative relationships.”
But don’t be mistaken: This “culture” is wonderfully convenient.
“One has a very short time at college,” said David, who has one short-lived sophomore year relationship to his name. “We have the next ten to fifteen years to be in steady, monogamous relationships. This is the time to try different things, see what works.”
This is only exhilarating, however, when both people prefer to remain unattached. Hook up because you think it’s better than a WesMarriage, and you might be disappointed.
“You don’t know the rules,” said Jenny Low ’06. “You don’t know when you’re allowed to hook up, you don’t want it to turn into a relationship. There’s freedom but it’s not especially satisfying.”
This is a troubling prospect for students who had little dating experience in high school. For these students, old-fashioned dating could make for a mild introduction to the Wesleyan’s social scene; unfortunately, it rarely happens.
“Everyone I know is randomly hooking up or in intense relationships,” Marissa said. “I don’t know where you meet people.”
The pressure toward casual encounters is disturbing not because it is widespread, but because people often just hook up in order to be social.
“I sometimes worry that I’m thought of as part of a block word,” said Lodick, who is the only one among her close friends in a serious relationship.
“Relationships limit you socially,” David said. “When you go to parties, there’s this motivation in the back of your mind that maybe you’ll meet someone. When [you’re in a relationship] the motivation isn’t there.”
Marissa, on the opposite end of the spectrum, met her now-infamous, star-gazing “boyfriend” at the reserve desk in Olin, where they bonded for an hour and a half over their shared love of Italian neorealist film. The only thing to do, of course, was meet again for more conversation.
And when you get tired of hooking up, the next step, of course, is the serious relationship? For some students, like Robin, this can work, and for others, romance at college is a circular game, lapping back and forth from commitment to an ever-expanding circle of past hookups.
Low has been in relationships of varying lengths at Wesleyan, has “made out with a lot of people,” and for the past four months has been living with her boyfriend, Manuel Sanchez ’07. Low calls her relationship a WesMarriage, but also says it is the happiest she’s been so far.
“We’re the Bennifer of this campus,” Low said. (Actually, it’s Manifer if you combine their real names). It seems that hookups and relationships have finally found a common ground, at least for these two.
“If you don’t get along sexually, it’s really against the relationship, since humans are so fond of sex,” Sanchez said.
So relationships are founded in sex? Perhaps my mother was on to something.
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