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A Triflin' Friend Indeed

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Silk Blue Stockings

Yeah, she maybe a gold-digger, but Kanye, I think you got the pronoun wrong. I think it should be he’s a gold-digger, for this land of so-called equal opportunity really means equal opportunity to be an asshole. And, for all of our kumbaya-ing, the equal opportunity thing is a load of horseshit because minorities and women are still struggling for autonomy in this culture. Okay, that shouldn’t really be news to anybody, but honestly it is going to take more than a few red arches and smiling, ethnically balanced portraits in pamphlets to turn things around. For instance, as much as professors hum and hah about gender equality in lecture until they’re blue in the face, the young men at Cornell, generally speaking, still treat women extremely poorly. I find it frustrating that as much as young men here are aware of gender hierarchy, the practical application of this knowledge is left in the classroom and quickly dissipates on Friday and Saturday nights.

So there used to be this thing called a date, pronounced [deyt] like the figgy thing that isn’t really a fig. According to dictionary.com, a date is, “a social appointment, engagement, or occasion arranged beforehand with another person.” Their listed example is: “to go out on a date on Saturday night.”

Now the key ingredient is the arranging beforehand, so texting a girl at three in the morning and asking her to come over is not a date. In fact, I would say anything arranged less than four hours prior to a meeting is not a date. And the purpose of a date is to get to know someone — or at least make the pretense that you are trying to get to know someone before you boink them.

Incentives to go on dates, actually multiple dates, before you boink them: Um, how about syphilis? When people talk about their intimacy issues, they harrumph about being afraid of “getting hurt.” Let’s be practical, my heart will heal; I’m afraid of getting the syph. No, seriously, this may be crude, but let’s call a spade a spade. Knowing someone is not a foolproof protection, but it’s a step in the right direction. I could probably go on about my paranoia about sexual health and personal hygiene forever, but we already have enough articles scaring the living feces out of us about STIs.

I am totally all for free love in theory, but I can’t help feeling that women are getting the short end of the prick. Sexual liberation and free love have basically destroyed all the protocol of dating, but have not deconstructed the everlasting double standard. We neither get treated with chivalry nor equality, so women really get shafted. I am not concerned with whether or not guys pay for dinner — sorry to be so heterosexually focused here — but I think people should at least go to dinner, or a movie — I’m flexible. And sitting on the couch, getting stoned and hooking up while a movie is playing is not a date (unless you’ve been dating for a while).

Here’s another equation that I really don’t think young men realize: monogamy = more sex. It sounds crazy, I know. I am not a huge monogamy enforcer, but I want to suggest to young men that a little time and effort can = sex. Young men will have more sex if they commit to one girl at a time. Having a girlfriend means sex everyday — pot shot hooking up means having sex once a month, semester, year? Come on, no one’s game is that good, and if it is, you’re sleeping with girls who are insecure and validating themselves through sexual conquests. I would say they are harlots, but that would be playing into the double standard.

Another double standard that is not nearly as obvious is the western cultural fear of the female gold-digger. This fear, sadly to say, is not totally unfounded. However, it is far from being a purely female quality. Remember Midas?

I used to think “for love or money” was a figure of speech, but it ain’t so. Because there is so much hype and fear over female gold-digging, the male ones can catch you by surprise, and they are just as prevalent. Look at any Jane Austen novel; they’re smattered with male fortune hunters.

Lucky for me, or maybe unlucky, I don’t have money … not like house in the Hamptons money (God bless you if you do). So, I should be immune, or protected in a sense, from these insidious parasites. And I was protected, for a time, when I was a starving artist, but now some people erroneously think I may have money … I’m talking house in the Hamptons money.

For instance, when I was vaguely dating a young banker in Los Angeles last summer, he nearly fainted when he saw the house I was raised in, yeah, and my family wasn’t home, so I can’t even blame it on them. He acted as if he had entered a trailer park. He said, “Why is everything so old?” I didn’t really have an answer for that. His next ingenious observation was, “There are a lot of books here.” Finally, he said, “Where is your TV?” I told him that we didn’t have one and never had one … and then I showed him the door — which, by the way, has been left unpainted for nine years.

I wasn’t really bothered by this situation as an isolated incident, but unfortunately the pattern seems to be recurring. A boy once told me, “I will be your lover if you make enough money,” which was sort of a moot point because he was already my lover. Then he moved somewhere exotic with a girl who, in fact, did have a house in the Hamptons. I really ought to have seen that coming. So, beware of triflin’ friends — they come in all sorts.

Claire Readhead is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at clr39@cornell.edu. Silk Blue Stockings appears alternate Mondays.

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