This was written last year in response to the abysmal state of Duke's dating scene. Since then, Danielle's own luck has changed, but her opinion on the culture still remains the same:
I am disappointed. Three years into my college career, I have yet to experience the thrilling dating life I had so hoped to find in the Gothic Wonderland. When I arrived on campus freshman year, I could almost taste the romance in store for me: long, meaningful walks through the Duke Gardens, Friday night dinners and a movie (possibly followed by a soda or a Coke float), giddy introductions between my family and that of some charming new boyfriend, and oh, so much more. Three years later, my naivete has been replaced by an often frightening sense of cynicism, and the rose-colored glasses I once wore have begun to cast a more vomit-colored hue over my idealistic fantasies. To put it bluntly, I've had enough.
Perhaps my disappointment would be easier to bear if I were not a formerly romantic idealist, but idealism aside, I have experienced dating disasters here at Duke that even the most hard-nosed cynic would find traumatic. There was the time I took a guy to a sorority semiformal, and he managed to get so intoxicated that he began undressing himself at the dance, fighting all attempts to re-clothe him. Or the other semiformal at which my date's friend thought it would be hilarious to rub birthday cake all over my head. And I'll always remember the time I left my date alone for a few minutes and came back to find him physically fighting with someone else's date. Forget about chivalry and romance - my dates have seemed to lack even a basic knowledge of manners.
Would Tom Hanks have publicly undressed in Sleepless in Seattle? Would Patrick Swayze have mashed frosting into Baby's curls while they dirty danced? Would Richard Gere have idiotically socked some other party guest while he wined and dined his pretty woman? Reality can be tough, but we all know that Duke is not quite reality - and in terms of dating, it is its own separate hell.
I've heard from some of my coupled-up girlfriends that romance does exist on this campus, but whatever this strange breed of Duke romance is, it is foreign to me. Yet I have never been one to wallow in my sorrows. With a year left to go, I figure that I might as well channel my frustrations and try to gain something from my countless weekends of singledom. I have therefore decided to view my role within the Duke dating scene not as an active member, but as an outside observer - a cultural anthropologist, if you will, attempting to understand and, I hope, to find humor in a dating world which in no way lives up to those portrayed in the numerous romantic comedies I watch alone in my room each weekend.
Take the last sorority event I attended. It was supposed to be a "crush party" in which boys whom the girls have secretly invited (or "crushed") show up so the girls can try to make something happen. As I attended this event with my new cultural anthropological identity, I couldn't help noticing some curious details that, well, lessened the romantic atmosphere of the place. First of all, there was the mechanical bull near the center of the venue, on which drunken girls and dirty old men alternated taking rides. No matter how deep in a conversation you were, you couldn't get the image of the gyrating bull out of your peripheral vision. In addition, a photographer was hired to take pictures that the sorority members can later purchase to commemorate the event. In and of itself, this concept is quite sweet; the photographer at this particular event, however, seemed so eager that she repeatedly forced guests into extremely awkward situations in which they found themselves posing, arm-in-arm, with people and often "crushes" they had just met. And finally, in addition to other situational obstacles, there were the crushes themselves. Overconfident with the knowledge that some female in the room had requested their presence, many of the crushes were standoffish and snobby, intimidating the girls and defeating the entire purpose of the event. From a cultural anthropological perspective, I had to wonder, "Why do the women of Duke subject themselves to such stupidity?"
Because, my friends, we have no other options. Although I am writing from the perspective of someone involved in the greek social scene, I have been told that Duke's dating scene (or the lack thereof) is more or less the same across all social boundaries. Not to say that all social groups on campus have crush parties and formals, etc., but simply that the attitudes adopted by (many of) the men at Duke are fairly consistent. The attitudes are ones of apathy and passiveness, as well as total disregard for the inflated, starry-eyed notions of romance many Duke women initially possess.
At Duke, it is so rare for a male student to ask a female out on a date that, if she is (miraculously) asked, the girl often does not know how to respond. On the few real dates I have been on throughout my time at Duke, the atmosphere was so tense and formal that I became immediately turned-off, longing for the laid-back and comfortable parties in which men and women intermingle with mutual disrespect. Unless the entire male student body decides to make a mass statement and begin asking girls out on dates on a regular basis, this Catch-22 of Duke dating will remain in place.
During a lunch conversation last year, some friends and I jokingly came up with a sneaky plan to trick the guys at Duke into dating us. Each time a guy made a plan with us - either to study or grab lunch or whatever - we would answer his invitation with, "Oh, like a date?" For instance, if the guy said something like, "Hey, can I meet with you at the library tomorrow to copy your notes from class?", we would respond with, "Sure, like a date?" Our plan predicted that, flustered by this inappropriate redefining of a simple get-together, the guy would not know how to respond and, before he knew it, would find himself on a "study date" with a girl. Once the everyday use of the word "date" had infiltrated the male vocabulary, men would no longer need our help, and the women of Duke would reap the benefits of a whole new way of life.
We never had the guts to implement the plan.
Despite the three years of dating misery that lie behind me, I am learning to like my new cynical personality. I can watch romantic comedies and laugh at the silly characters and contrived plots. I can see through any pickup line and respond to its deliverer with hostile sarcasm. I feel protected and calloused - with my expectations on the ground, there is no room to fall. And yet, I would hate to come across as too bitter. Guys don't like that, right?
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