HC: What do you think about sexual assault on Michigan’s campus?
PD: It’s terrible that it exists, but it exists nonetheless. It exists to some degree everywhere, and in a setting where people are given freedoms they’ve never had before. Most will make good choices, however some will not. Some of it stems from peer pressure, some of it stems from what people think “the norm” is, and a few are just not well informed and honestly probably believe that what they’re doing is okay. The only thing I can really say is that people, especially girls, be careful. Don’t go off on your own, make sure friends know where you are, and have a plan or strategy for getting away if things go south. Additionally, this doesn’t happen to just girls. While it’s not as common that guys are the survivors of sexual assault, it still happens. A major difference is that most guys will never report it or speak up about it because they don’t want to seem “unmanly” or whatever social norm bullshit. To be clear, this isn’t meant to scare you, and I’m probably telling you things you already know. But we all know people affected by this and so we have the RESPONSIBILITY to work to end sexual assault wherever we are and wherever we go.
HC: How did you meet your girlfriend and/or ask her out?
PD: Well how I asked her out literally is the most boring thing in the world so I won’t even include that. We have been dating for a year now, and it all started back in freshman year. As much as I’m not a huge fan of MHousing rules, I’ve got to thank them in part for being the reason Amanda and I met. We were both in learning communities our freshman year, she in Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) and me in Michigan Research Community (MRC). We met a couple times throughout the fall with both learning communities getting to know one another or running into each other in the halls; however I thought I had no chance so I didn’t even really try to talk to her much. If you know me, the fact that I was too nervous to talk to her should say something. I don’t really shut up sometimes, and I usually have no problem talking to anyone…but with Amanda I was nervous. Freshman year goes on and we don’t talk really, and we move into sophomore year. We were both training for our first marathon in Detroit. And since running alone isn’t really that much fun all the time, we ran together once or twice while training. Come race time, I overestimated what I could do and made some rookie mistakes and Amanda blew by me at mile 19. I tried soooo hard to will my legs to stop cramping to keep up with her as she tried to encourage me, but to no avail. She ended up qualifying for the Boston Marathon (and running it, casual) and I about killed myself to finish under 4 hours. Again, I was a bit nervous to talk to her and only offered a brief and short-winded congrats, and we went separate ways for another year. Come junior year and both of us having relationships that didn’t work out, we reconnected. I asked her to come running with me and that’s where we started talking again. A few nervous dates scattered across the fall semester, a few dropped hints on her part, and I finally asked her out in the beginning of the winter semester, and it’s been amazing ever since.