Dane Cook said it best with “f*** chicks dude, I just wanna dance. I just want to express myself through the art of dance.” Everybody knows that Stanford is notorious for its rep as the place where “nobody dates,” with weekend warriors dominating the hookup scene. But for most girls, the prospect of years of random hookups can be pretty nauseating. After a while, a boyfriend looks like the perfect solution – someone who respects you, cares for you, and whom you can depend on to treat you like more than a piece of meat on a sweaty dance floor. But is that guy you decided to bestow with the title of “boyfriend” someone who you’re proud to show off, or was he the closest breathing mammal when you decided to settle down? Here are the top ways to tell if you’re falling in love, or just playing it safe.
He came in at a convenient time.
Did you let your relationship blossom, or did you force yourself to feel something that wasn’t there? Looking back on the beginning of the relationship, did it all start from the moment your eyes met across the dining hall table, or did you want a boyfriend first, then manhunt him down? There are a million reasons why having a boyfriend is convenient – you’re always so bored when your friends are being lame doing their problem sets, you hate watching your roommate snuggling with her boyfriend, you want someone to hold your hand when you watch “Paranormal Activity.” Before getting any farther, you have to ask yourself, “do I really like him, or did I just need a boyfriend?” If you can honestly imagine your relationship being platonic, it probably should be.
You’d rather hang out with your friends.
When it comes down to it, you wouldn’t be wasting your time alone with him if you had other people to hang out with. How often do you cancel your plans to hang out because one of your friends suddenly had a free schedule, or because you got a better offer to do something more fun than take a stroll past MemChu? You should always balance relationships with friendships, bros before hos and chicks before dicks and all that, but you should look forward to the time you do spend with him. If you catch yourself constantly agonizing over how you’re wasting your precious time with him when you’d rather be studying for your midterm, watching Glee with your bff, or going out…GO! Do it! Cut the dead weight! There’s a reason why you’d rather be doing other things…because they can hold your attention and he, well, can’t.
He could hook up with five other girls, and five other guys, and…you wouldn’t care.
The number one best way to tell if you’re into a guy is to take a step back and see how much you actually care about him. Not in the way of deeply psychoanalyzing the depth of your emotions or nonsense like that, but how much do you actually care about what he does or doesn’t do. If you were to find out tomorrow that he was going abroad for the next year, had been dating another girl at the same time as you, or had been in a freak bike accident leaving him with only one leg, would you even shed a tear or just cut your losses and never look back? Apathy is the best indicator of true feelings. If you hardly find yourself excited to see him, sad to watch him go, or even jealous of the girls you see tryna, chances are you never will be.
So girls, maybe your friends keep telling you to ditch your dud because you’re “in safe” and not “in love,” well what do you do now? Above all, listen to your own gut, not those of your four best friends. As George Tsiveriotis ‘13 says, “what do jealous bitches know about how you really feel about your man?” Only you know how you truly feel about someone, and if it’s anything less than puppy love, get out before it gets messy.