Maybe it was springtime, with all the flowers in bloom filling the air with sweet, soft scents. Or maybe it was each of my girlfriends, one by one, becoming captured by her own springtime romance. Or maybe it was the gang from back home constantly asking that dreaded question: "Have you met any nice boys up at school?" Well, whatever the reason, something caused me to, over the last couple of weeks, forget my feminist roots and think that I needed a man to ensure my happiness. Am I ever glad that I finally came to my senses and realized that no man could ever bring me happiness.
Now, I'm not knocking men, by any means. Guys, please keep reading. I promise you, this is not a male-bashing column. I like men as much as any other heterosexual 18-year-old woman. Many who know me might insist that I actually like men even more than most women my age. I have dated guys at Dartmouth and had my share of random hook-ups (hey, who hasn't?). All I'm saying is that I can never, and hopefully will never, allow any guy to become the focal point of my life.
Why, you ask? Well, I have a number of reasons. First of all, I look at how I have acted during points in my life when I was focused on gaining the affections of a particular man. I neglected things which would normally be large priorities in my life, such as academics, friends and family. I allowed myself to be controlled by such idiotic things as whether or not I received a Blitz (or a phone call, back in high school) from Mr. Wonderful. Instead of paying attention in class or at meetings I would daydream about what it would be like the next time I saw him. I would contemplate ways to win his heart and imagine the scenario of him telling me that after all my longing, he did in fact adore me. And in the end, this whole melodramatic production proved futile, and I always wound up miserable. My grades would suffer, my friends and family would feel ignored (and rightly so), and the guy never quite turned out to be worth it. If I did win him over, he usually proved not nearly to deserve to be on the pedestal upon which I placed him. This is not his fault, mind you; I doubt I ever should have placed him on such a pedestal to begin with. More likely than not, though, I did not win his heart, and so I would spend a day or two wallowing in the abyss of rejection. Never fun.
If you are one of those people who derives much of her happiness from others, let my experiences of failed men-chasing be a lesson for you. Once you make any man the complete object of your attention, the odds are that for whatever reason, you'll never have him. I've found that the best relationships end up being the ones that you don't have to do much work, maneuvering or scheming to begin. They just sort of happen, and when they do, they're wonderful.
I doubt I have any right to be telling anyone how to live her life, but I cannot help but say that I feel it is extremely unhealthy to rely on someone else to provide all of the happiness in your life. Happiness is just one of those matters that we all have to take into our own hands. Now, please do not misread me. I did not just advise every Dartmouth girl to run out and buy herself a vibrator. What I'm saying is while we're all waiting for Mr. Right to come along and sweep us off our feet (because we've already determined that it's a bad idea to go out looking for him and pursuing him), we can do other things. We can focus on our work, be it in classes, student activities or community activities. Who knows? We may just discover that these things bring us even more happiness than men do. We might even decide that they bring us a completely full life, and when Mr. Right finally finds his way to our doorstep, we may just tell him to keep on moving. Maybe Gloria Steinem was right when she said, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."
