Weblog
I never really dated in high school. Any girl for whom I ever fostered an attraction in my teen years can tell you that, at best, my attempts to effect romance always ended in some semblance of awkwardness. Over-the-top sentimentality seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was only because I believed I was acting in the name of chivalry. In reality, saying and doing the wrong things at the wrong time led to situations in which my sins were two-fold. One such attempt at said chivalry ended in an automobile accident, which was just sad and humiliating.
But mostly sad.
Dating in college, as I’ve found over the last few years, poses a few other challenges that don’t at all yield to general inexperience, so it is immensely fortunate that I have been able to free myself of the ties that once bound me to being completely irrational. Sort of. I mean, I’m no expert in the field or anything, but at least I don’t hide roses in the passenger-side sunvisor anymore. Oh, but, you know, not that I doubt anyone else could successfully pull that kind of craft off. It’s just that my own personal failure with it will forever haunt me and convince me to never try it again. Ever.
As I was about to say though, and to more or less state the obvious, college provides an arena for dating quite different from that of high school. (And that of post-academia, I suppose.) One caveat I must append to that claim, however, is that I can only speak for colleges that are found in more rural and, by that virtue, less urban locales — places to which attending students like to attribute all sorts of nasty terms like “shithole” and “frozen Hell” and “worst place on the planet” and “get me out of here, please” and “God damn it.” I myself do not condone the use of such interjections.
The Middle of Nowhere
And so, I suspect that living on a college campus that is said to be “in the middle of nowhere” has a profound impact on all of the university’s social underpinnings, which necessarily includes the dating scene. Couples are often looking for things to do that allow them to situate their time together in the context of some diversional activity — one that engages both partners but that may not focus their attention strictly on each other. Finding such activities at a place like Cornell versus an inner-city school then requires a different set of tolerances and a different propensity for recognizing recreational opportunities.
Of course, most Cornell students will say that the academic life here is too demanding to let one invest so much forethought and consideration into an enriching social life, and on this matter they mostly speak the truth. Still, the social and cultural setting of upstate New York is far enough removed from that of any typically large metropolis to encourage couples to adopt other ways of spending time in each others’ company. Cornell students in particular tend to make good use of Ithaca’s more natural environments and quaint, small-town atmosphere for romantic promenades, excursions, and the like.
Not everyone is into taking walks around Beebe Lake though, so others make do by passing their time closer to campus. A matter of preference, really.
Proximity
In high school, you probably had to drive to get to your girlfriend’s house. Sometimes, you didn’t even go to the same school. In college, you’re guaranteed to be within at least one or two miles of your girlfriend at all times. Granted, there are guys with girlfriends at other schools, but long distance relationships are a completely different story all together and fall outside the relevant scope of this discussion.
I’m having a hard time proposing anything conclusive about the notion of proximity though, since every couple has its own idea of how much time together is too much time together. I do get a sense nonetheless that the condition of living so close to one another exaggerates the effects of potentially getting on each others’ nerves or running out of things to talk about. Ultimately, it may be said that perpetual proximity is a means of revealing the strength (among other things) of the relationship.
In Conclusion
I guess there really isn’t anything that makes dating in college a particularly special case. Going to high school, graduating and going to college, then graduating and entering the workforce — these are all fairly substantial periods of our lives that impose their own unique constraints and requisites for finding and enjoying the company of that one, special someone, and it is therefore not the case that one is the norm whereas the other two are corner cases or exceptions to the rule. Not that I really had to tell you this explicitly, but each girl and each place and each stage of your life are all too variable to construe objectively.
And so you learn to exercise sound judgment and make use of what’s available to you, so that when she eventually finds herself reminded of the romance in her life, she won’t care so much about how she actually spent that time as she will cherish first and foremost the fact that the one she spent it with was you.