Fish picture. Lacrosse picture. Baseball picture. Red flag after red flag after red flag. My thumb keeps swiping left. Aha, I find one—a boy who has “climate change” as one of his selected interests! I finally swipe right. We match!
“Hey,” I text, making the bold first move.
“WYA?” he replies, almost instantly.
I soon realize it is 1:00am on a Saturday night, and most people have returned from the NCAs. I leave him on read for a few minutes.
“oh damn ur a freshman,” a few moments of silence ensue, “nvm.”
Kenyon College’s Tinder scene is far from anomalous, and my experience is far from unique. I am, by no means, claiming that we are the only campus occupied by hormonal, twenty-something year-old boys. But coming from Orlando, a city overflowing with short-lived tourists, I was shocked that I could have a more meaningful interaction with a posh, British Disney-visitor on the dating app than with a classmate I would have to see for the next four years. Simply put, being a person attracted to men at Kenyon sucks.
Now, if you’ve matched with me on Tinder, relax. This article aims not to attack any individual, but rather the broader phenomenon of the delusional, egomaniacal man on this campus and the unconquerable libido. I take issue with the pseud, the finance bro in training, the soft boy—the virtual fabric that connects them all into one detestable archetype—the übermensch of liberal arts college (toxic) masculinity.
What standard do these boys miss? What explains the “ick”? Well, here’s what I want, all I want: give me George Knightley. Perhaps Jane Austen was onto something, and I ought to correct my Tinder settings for age and find a 37-year-old man to run off with. But why should I have to? Kenyon has a responsibility to breed more respectable men, point blank. Lack of maturation does not account for the boys here more closely resembling Andrew Tate’s demeanor than that of an Austenian love interest. It is something more intrinsic.
I believe that these boys, in their hearts of hearts, do not recognize their misgivings. And, face it, we are on the app for similar (if not the same) reasons. But they exist in their own circle, adopt their own ethic, they fraternize. And they give each other the validation that they do not receive from women (because they are so deluded in their own conceptions of what it means to be “masculine”), only feeding into a vicious cycle of insensitivity. In our darkest hours, we might bite in. Stay strong—they fixate on these minute successes.
And remember: Tinder is not the problem, Kenyon is. Last summer, I found two long-term relationships with fantastic men—both of whom were grad students, staying home for the summer with their parents. They had interesting stories, and were not lying about their interests. They were literate, their music tastes were superb, their wits existent, etc., etc. Florida men simply fare better than their northern brothers, the Ohioans. Maybe the lack of sunshine and seasonal depression is to blame for our rotten dating pool. But I need not make excuses! Again, we mustn’t explain away their inadequacies! We must look to the sky, expand our distance settings!
I propose that the men of this campus ought to temporarily be banned from Tinder, put on time out, and learn their lesson. The boys have their Saturdays. We should have our fantasies. Do better, Kenyon.
Disclaimer: I am a cishet woman—I do not know what Tinder looks like in LGBTQIA+ spaces on this campus; though, from what I’ve heard from friends, it is not much better.