If you haven’t seen the Facebook Invite yet, I suggest you log on and search D3TV’s “The Bachelor”. Yes, that’s right DePauw University is going to be putting on a version of the Bachelor. The call out says, “Men and Women actors are needed for both the bachelor and contestants, so if you have any experience or just want to see what it’s like, come to our auditions November 19th and 20th!” When I saw this event, I was excited. After watching the old episodes via Youtube, I firmly believe that this has the potential to be a high rated TV show. But after thinking about it, talking to people, and thinking some more, I grew flustered. Not by the idea of getting to watch my peers “fall in love” because I believe it will be highly entertaining, but by the idea of love at DePauw.
DePauw University is known for a liberal arts education, beautiful campus, party scene, friendly Mid-West attitude, and these elusive “DePauw marriages.” I am a true romantic. I love gowns, roses, chocolate, and serenades but I honestly don’t know how people ended up getting married to another DePauw student. The dating culture here is difficult. You can either hook up drunk consecutively until you hook up sober or you can develop a crush and attempt to make that work. Then the people in monogamous relationship don’t want the titles that make the rest of us wonder: why?
The New York Times Magazine published an article this summer that my mother so nicely put on our fridge so when I went to eat food; I would see an article about relationships in college. The article called “Sex on Campus- She Can Play That Game, Too,” explained the recent phenomenon of women playing the dating game more like, well, players. Some of the quotes struck me:
“And I know everyone says, ‘Make time, make time,…But there are so many other things going on in my life that I find so important that I just, like, can’t make time, and I don’t want to make time.”
“Keenly attuned to what might give them a competitive edge, especially in a time of unsure job prospects and a shaky economy, many of them [women] approach college as a race to acquire credentials: top grades, leadership positions in student organizations, sought-after internships”
“We are very aware of cost-benefit issues and trading up and trading down, so no one wants to be too tied to someone that, you know, may not be the person they want to be with in a couple months”
“A relationship is like taking a four-credit class”
“Am I allowed to find the person I want to spend the rest of my life with when I’m 19? It feels like I’m not”
All of those are so true yet admitting that seems so wrong. As busy DePauw women, we have meetings, papers, Moodle articles to read, speakers to attend, internships to get and tests to study for. But have we become too busy that we don’t have time for love? I’m willing to bet that every girl wants to find love eventually but are we supposed to stop being ambitious and taking on leadership roles or harder classes? Personally, I don’t really want to make time right now but maybe someday I will. But what scares me is that I won’t be able make that time when I really want too.