We all watch in awe at the slow dances and sappy romantic gestures in our favorite romantic movies, but thanks to the hookup culture that is a huge part of many college campuses, fairy tale romance appears to be in a land far far away from frat row. The implications of college culture make it seem highly unrealistic to expect a frat boy to sweep us off our feet like in the movies. But if it is true that 63 percent of college women hope to find their spouse while at college, and 20 percent of Bucknellians find their spouses at Bucknell, where then, is the romance?
The glorification of college culture in movies like Spring Breakers or The House Bunny, and even in songs like Asher Roth’s “I Love College,” have conditioned us to feed into the notion that college is all about crazy parties and casual hookups. And while partying and hooking up are definitely large parts of college fun, the media’s depiction of college creates a stereotype that can actually affect our love lives. College guys portrayed in the media are normally only concerned with two things: girls and drinking. This depiction of college guys couldn’t be any further from prince charming, which creates the expectation that guys in college have no interest in any kind of romance, and hooking up to them is purely physical.
The issue that arises when we feed into this stereotype is that girls tend to reciprocate by shutting down their emotions as well in order to avoid getting hurt. By keeping our emotions hidden, it becomes easy for guys and girls to look at each other as objects rather than as actual people, which leaves little room for emotional connection. One Bucknell guy explains, “I feel, especially here at Bucknell, that all girls want to do is party, and they wouldn’t be interested in hanging out or going on a date. So if you like a girl you’d have to go to a party with her.” The problem with just hanging out with a guy at a party is, as another Bucknell guy points out, “It’s really hard to talk at a party, so you just hook up and get to know her personality later.” Relationships in college consequently form in the reverse order than they did in our parent’s generation. Often times a girl and guy will hook up before they decide to engage in any kind of relationship.
So where does romance come in? As the stereotype of college culture teaches us to suppress our emotions, and hookups seem to be the prominent means of getting a guy’s attention, the hope of any kind of romance in college seems bleak. However, this view of the relationship between college guys and girls isn’t necessarily accurate. As one Bucknell guy said: “I would definitely want to get to know a girl better who I think is cute and ask her out on a date.” Maybe, then, we have changed our mindset on romance to accommodate a stereotype that is not necessarily true. If Bucknell guys are actually willing to break beyond the physical, then the stereotypes depicted by the media may in fact be giving us false information. So while we are living it up at parties and hooking up with whomever we please, we should remember that there is actually the possibility for romance in college. And who knows, maybe there is a prince charming out there among all of those frat boys.