We No Speak Americano: Dating

Dart­mouth is a col­lege of hook-ups and bro­ken hearts, I have ob­served. You might meet your Prince Charm­ing in Berry li­brary when you both co­in­ci­den­tally reach for the same book on po­lit­i­cal the­ory, but chances are that spe­cial some­one you meet on a night out will for­get your name the next time you both find your­selves stand­ing to­gether in the stir-fry line at Col­lis.

So how does a Dart­mouth girl trap a Dart­mouth boy into com­mit­ting, watch­ing him help­lessly flail in her grasp as she hisses the word “ba­bies” at him and drags him shoe shop­ping? Or (pos­si­bly) es­tab­lish a whole­some re­la­tion­ship based on mu­tual re­spect?

At Ed­in­burgh, we date. Or at least, I date. My flat­mates like to stand at the win­dow to watch my com­pan­ion and me mak­ing awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion on the doorstep, pulling faces and cat-call­ing if we de­cide to pucker up. I am still won­der­fully sin­gle, mainly due to these lovely girls that I live with: Blast­ing“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”out­side my bed­room door, and in­ter­view­ing each can­di­date does not ro­mance make. But then again, nei­ther does tak­ing me to a bag­pipe con­cert, or lock­ing me in a crypt in Scot­land’s most haunted kirk­yard. Grr.

So why does Dart­mouth not date? Pos­si­bly be­cause the num­ber of places in which such an event can take place is se­verely lim­ited. Valen­tine’s Day at FoCo? Not on your Nel­lie. Other po­ten­tial rea­sons: be­cause there is a lack of ex­pec­ta­tion amongst the stu­dents, be­cause peo­ple are lazy, be­cause it’s hard to "meet" peo­ple here ex­cept for when you’re ine­bri­ated and per­spir­ing at a very wor­ry­ing rate. There­fore, I de­cided to make it my mis­sion to bring dat­ing to Dart­mouth.

What a fail­ure. How naive I was. Dart­mouth stu­dents, do not date. It is not worth the stress. I was tricked into hav­ing din­ner with a man four years younger than me, who sipped a soda as I downed glass after glass of wine after he’d con­fessed. My next din­ner date was for­tu­nately my age (I checked his dri­ver’s li­cense be­fore­hand), but he took my cut­lery out of my hands and ate my food like it was no big deal. Then made me put down a $20 tip. Then there was the pong in­ci­dent, where I found my­self play­ing to win my date — and it was my first time. Re­cently, I agreed to a night out with a young medic which should be trans­lated as "a night spent sit­ting in his car." For 50 min­utes. Not say­ing any­thing. Then he sug­gested we go sit in the lobby of the Bank of Amer­ica for a “change of scenery” — I wanted to bash my head in on his dash­board.

This is cer­tainly not a rant. I am strong, sin­gle lady (in­sert fin­ger snap­ping here). It’s just nice to think that a hook-up might, for once, turn into break­fast. Does the end al­ways have to be in sight?

I’m going to try this fuzzy fel­low next:

“My pep is not ral­lied, Alan!”