As the mercury begins to rise and snow banks recede, "spring fever" will begin to spread from the Green to Baker Library (well, at least the stacks) and beyond. The thriving hook-up culture at Dartmouth will once again become quite apparent. At the same time, dames and Don Quixotes frustrated with the lacking romance in Hanover will inevitably hand down their indictments of the social scene -- and give Dartmouth an unfair rap.
Discontents argue that social conditions at Dartmouth foster a distinctly institutionalized and widespread hook-up culture that is unrivaled at other colleges. From the tasteless Bored at Baker innuendo, to the gossipy whispers at Home Plate Sunday brunch, to the pages of the Dartmouth Mirror, students are constantly reminded of the hook-up culture that dominates the Big Green. "Nobody dates. Everyone hooks up," the 2005 "Students' Guide to Colleges" book succinctly summarizes the Hanover social atmosphere to prospective students.
Conventional wisdom dictates that the College is too rural and too disjointed with the D-Plan to enjoy a normal dating scene. Dissatisfied with the limited possibilities to "wine and dine," aspiring romantics are just left to whine. In the void, Greek life and pong substitute for actual dates.
And on top of that, the D-Plan systematically and prematurely extinguishes budding romances, constantly separating couples for months at a time.
Is the hook-up culture really just as unique to Dartmouth student life as Fried Chicken Mondays, morning drill and blitz wars?
While there are many different ways in which the College's rural environment makes the Dartmouth experience unique, the hook-up culture is simply not one of them. Regardless of geography and academic calendar, hook-up culture dominates collegiate social scenes across the entire nation. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule (read: Brigham Young University). But then again, you never know. What happens in Utah stays in Utah.
Just compare Dartmouth with schools situated in entirely different settings than Hanover.
"Hook-up culture is no stranger to Columbia," Columbia senior Miriam Datskovsky, The Columbia Spectator's famed sex columnist, explained to me in an interview. Despite Columbia's being nestled amid the endless restaurants, bars and clubs of bustling Gotham and following a semester schedule, very few of its students actually date. Hook-ups are just as culturally pervasive in Harlem as in Hanover.
The hormones that motivate the culture defy geography. "College lends itself to hook-up culture. You are in college, doing a bunch of things for the first time," Datskovksy continues. "In your four years, you can make any social mistake and pretty much recover from it."
At Dartmouth and Columbia alike, students are "independent and self-driven and like to do their own thing." Between the rigors of class, extracurricular activities and maintaining friendships, it is difficult to find the time for a relationship, which can seem like a fourth class (and one that you cannot NRO). "So many people do so many different things. People go abroad. At Columbia, there are similar factors to Dartmouth that make a relationship difficult," Datskovsky adds. "It is easier to hook up than get in a serious relationship."
Conservative think tank Institute for American Values reported in 2001 that only one-third of 1,000 surveyed college women had been on two or more traditional "dinner and a movie" dates. With all its benefits, shortcomings and dangers, hook-up culture is not just a Dartmouth phenomenon. The cultural and social forces at work extend well beyond the "Hanover bubble."
Datskovksy suggests that hook-up culture is not even new to the social landscape of higher education. Though perhaps to a lesser degree, previous generations had similar youthful experiences, but "no one talked about it back then." Our generation initiated the dialogue and, as a result, became unfairly synonymous with the longstanding practice.
Simultaneously, there are examples everywhere of students bucking the collegiate trend. Dating still exists. Dartmouth self-selectively attracts homebodies who do not need the bright lights of the big city to be happy -- or date. Forget Spago. Who needed Wolfgang Puck when we had Food Court Larry?
Go ahead and catch "spring fever." Just do not perpetuate the myth of the Dartmouth hook-up culture and fault Main Street or the D-Plan for why "nobody dates anymore."
