Back in high school, it seemed as though the dating scene was as simple and routine as it could get. Since we were still dependent on our parents and most of us had bedtimes, it was hard for things to get very complicated. If boys wanted to date us, they had to come pick us up and take us to dinner, and have us home in time for a kiss on the front porch. If they didn’t make this effort, then clearly they weren’t serious about it. Maybe this wasn’t exactly everyone’s experience, but living with parents kept things pretty standard and regulated.
In college, our social lives, and our love lives, took a turn for the weird. Traditional dating is hard to come by here at Duke, where people are either in years-long committed relationships or enjoying casual hookups at Shooters every weekend. There seems to be no in-between, no happy medium for people who aren’t into casual sex but don’t want to commit to a marriage just yet.
Instead, we get the exact same guys over and over, the same cases of disappointment every time we try to go on a normal, you-look-beautiful-tonight date.
First off, there’s the tease. The guy who seemed super sweet and didn’t jump at the chance to sleep with you, who instead asked for your number and began texting and calling you on a daily basis. You spent hours talking together, and he probably did something super sweet, like make you dinner or take you out to eat some fancy food. Maybe you even hooked up, because he was really playing all his cards right, and you couldn’t get him out of your head. But right when you thought you’d hit the jackpot and found someone awesome, he dropped off the face of the earth. Texts stopped. Invites for food stopped. You never saw him again. Was it something you did?
Then there’s the inexperienced one, who’s clever and funny and clearly really into you, but has the guy ever held a girl’s hand before? He’s a nervous wreck whenever you go out to eat, and he never once seemed to be flirting or thinking about kissing you. You’ll get essay-sized texts from him about his favorite songs and books and you’ve never been more compatible with someone before, but the guy just does not know how to take it further. Eventually, you start thinking of him like your dog or your younger’s brother’s best friend, and there goes another one.
As obnoxious is the overly-experienced one, who has slept in everyone’s bed and wants you to know it, too. He’ll declare his love for you and only you, and then go tell four other girls the exact same thing. You don’t know if to trust him, enjoy the spurts of attention, or run away and never look back. He’s definitely cool and attractive, and you love the way he looks at you, but you know deep down that this is just a bad idea.
And, unfortunately, there’s always that sweet, handsome friend of yours who goes to you for all of his girl problems, but never seems to realize how much you’re drooling over him. You don’t want to ruin how close you guys are by confessing your love, but it’s so frustrating to hear him go on about other girls to you, when you know that the two of you would be perfect together. You’ll probably never get the nerve to try something daring with him, so you just have to keep dreaming that one day he’ll take you out of the friend-zone for long enough to realize that he loves you, too.
We all deal with these guys over and over, and it seems that everyone else but us is getting lucky with perfect boyfriends or getting by with exciting hookups every weekend. Meanwhile, we’ll stay in our dorms in our pajamas, watching something on Netflix for the hundredth time, longing for the days when we’d get taken out to dinner and then taken home for a Cinderella moment on the porch.