The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/college-dating/)
At the end of the day, we all just want to find someone to grow old with. The problem is that there’s no good litmus test for partnership, no way to know what it’d be like to spend every minute of every day with someone without actually spending every minute of every day with them. What we need to be doing is assessing compatibility and learning about the kinds of people we can be most comfortable around.
Creepy boys don’t often think of themselves or their actions as creepy. The rants my friends and I often have about how men suck don’t register in their minds as having any relation to them. They’re too nice to hurt a girl, they say. Still, there are many things that men have done to women on campus to make them uncomfortable and yet there are very few men who recognize this. That doesn’t add up.
Sometimes, I wish I could feel love as intensely as I did when I was 13, chasing after a boy who didn’t even like me and who I once blew behind an elementary school. It was my first heartbreak. I remember feeling it so vividly because it was the first time my emotions had conjured real, physical pain, like dropping 20-pound weights on my chest. When I was a high school sophomore, love felt more substantial because it was reciprocated, but I was just as naive. “I love you,” my first boyfriend Cameron said, looking straight into my eyes, a minute or two into our first time together.
Since middle school, I’ve craved male attention. Early on, I developed a sixth sense for athletic and charismatic boys, the kind who’d make the loudest jokes in class; ask the girl next to me to slow dance while seeming to look right through me. At night I prayed to magically wake up more extroverted, flirtier and funnier and please, please less pimply. I became certain if I could just make one boy like this love me (or at least look at me), then I would somehow be lovable, confirming my femininity and worth. Though I remained fixated on boys, my closest, most intimate relationships were with other girls.
I don’t necessarily endorse ghosting people. It can be incredibly cruel and lead to far more hurt feelings than talking to someone and formally breaking something off would. It’s an unfair way to communicate. The ghoster gets away with pretty much no consequences while the ghostee is left with questions and the nagging feeling of something unresolved. But what about when ghosting someone really does feel like the only way to convey your lack of interest?
The “dating” app Tinder is ubiquitous at Cornell and most other college campuses. “Dating” is in quotations because, as most of us know, Tinder is usually not used to find significant others, although some have certainly had success in doing exactly that. Most Tinder users in my demographic see the app as a conduit to casual hookups. Tinder and other apps like it do have a function in society, but the way in which they’re used now is aiding the degradation of our society’s morals. At the risk of sounding like a prudish Luddite, let me explain.
We are nearing the end of January, which means a few things. One, we recently returned to school and after a long and dry winter break, many of us are back to swiping right and left on our phones. Two, we are approaching Valentine’s Day, which personally doesn’t mean much, but renders me a little lonely nonetheless. And three, we are in the midst of cuffing season, and even the most free-spirited of Sex on Thursday writers are looking for a long-term cuddle buddy. Unfortunately, the new semester plus cold weather plus a sprinkle of desperation can lead to some bad decisions.