Imagine this: you are sitting in chapter meeting in pin attire enjoying the meeting until the social chair stands to make her announcement: “Winter formal is next weekend.”
*Gulp.* Your stomach sinks to your butt. Your heart beats so loudly you think the rest of the chapter might hear it. Why, might you ask, do socially adequate sorority women get so anxious about formals? Answer: the small pool of eligible bachelors at Rhodes relative to the girl population. For girls at larger state schools, the task of finding a good formal date is not such a debacle. At Rhodes, however, formals quickly turn into a dash for the best formal candidate.
To make this hypothetical situation even worse, Chi-O and AOIIs are having formals and swaps the same weekend (eliminating approximately 280 men who will be asked to said formals, plus the 80 Kappa Sigs who have a formal the same weekend). And don’t forget that the baseball and basketball teams will be travelling that weekend, eliminating 70+ eligible candidates from the pool. This leaves a very finite number of potential dates, and the Facebook hunting, mass texts, and desperate requests for a date begin.
There are several criteria for a good date. He must be social, fun, and free of a “history” with any of your friends (finding a dude that meets all these qualities, especially the latter, is not easy). Suddenly, everything that moves and is male must be considered.
There comes a point during every formal season when you’ve been rejected by so many different dudes (“Sorry I’m already going with ______”) that you might as well make Date Quest 2011 into a drinking game.
What’s a girl to do when you have exhausted every avenue, having harassed every single boy in your phonebook?
- Take a guy friend. The best formals I’ve ever had were spent with a date in whom I’m 100% not interested. The benefits? Dinner isn’t uncomfortable and sexually tense, you don’t feel pressured to babysit him all night, you can flit about the formal, and you can dance with other people without feeling awkward.
- Suggest to Panhellenic Council that they create a “Date Database” on which women can claim dates and post who they are taking to minimize humiliation and rejection….the next Facebook, perhaps? (Note: I will sue you, just like the Winklevoss twins did to Mark Zuckerberg, if you steal that idea).
- Call that high school buddy from Ole’ Miss and make him come to formal with you if every guy friend at Rhodes has been asked. Chances are the guy you’re really interested in has already been asked, and you can stalk him once you get to the formal.
- Take a nerd from your bio lab. If anything, at least you’ll have someone to “intellectually mooch off” down the road.
- Ask your brother to formal. If you have a brother of college age, fly him to Rhodes for the weekend, show him the school, and acclimate him to the raging party scene at Rhodes, if he can even handle it that is…(kidding).
- Last Resort: if finding a date proves to be too daunting for you, volunteer to be a sober monitor. It’s an opportunity to help your sisters, and you won’t have to worry about expensive dinner and drinks for 2.