Date functions. The bane of existence for many sorority girls. As my fellow columnist Whitney Beckett pointed out last week, deciding whom to take is a dilemma. However, there is a lot more to this than a simple game of eeny, meeny, miny, mo.
There's DFSD: date function stress disorder. What many of you males think is just a quick decision, actually involves research, planning and sometimes a little bit of guts. And when all of these forces combine, you're left with a girl this much closer to an ulcer and a lot more opposed to date functions on the whole.
For guys, the decision seems to be simple: get some from your date. If that is not a possibility, suck it up and take a friend so at least you can dirty rush guys at the midrush semi-formal. So, to help you guys better understand what many ladies go through, here's a little behind the scenes access to this taxing process.
Sorority meeting: Social chairs announce the event. Date Function. Next Saturday. And if all is quiet enough, you can actually hear the announcer say, "And they're off!" Girls leave meeting already strategizing about dates. Cell phones are put into action to see what other groups have date events that night. The horse race has begun.
The Preliminaries: The next few days are spent deciding which type of date you'll take. Do you go with a platonic guy friend? Do you go with "the sure thing" guy who has hooked up with you in the past? Do you say screw it all and ask a girl friend? Or, do you take a leap of faith and ask the guy you've recently become interested in (but have no idea about his position on you)? Some girls get through prelims without breaking a sweat. For the less secure and easily indecisive, preliminaries are spent in limbo.
They dance over the line of friend vs. new guy. At this point, phone calls are made to friends of the new guy. Feelers are put out to see what your chances are of having fun. Has he been hooking up with someone else? Does he like to dance? What are his success/failure performance rates from previous dates? Would he get along with my friends' dates? Prelims are spent preparing a dossier on said guy like an adult game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? And if his file comes back with a glowing report, you get his number and make the "no guts, no glory" call.
The funniest situation occurs when four or more sororities have an event on the same night. Last February, six groups had semi-formals on the same night and finding a date resembled the NBA draft. A girl would pick a date, only to find he'd gone to another team. Then it was all about rearranging and finding another player before making your pick. It would have been so much easier if they made a huge date board and put it in the Bryan Center so girls would not have had to make so many fruitless calls to guys who were already taken.
Tactics get unbelievably intense when there are multiple groups involved. That's when the "early ask" is introduced to the already chaotic process. These groups don't even hold preliminaries; they just dial and aggravate hundreds of other girls with their "the early bird get sthe worm" actions.
Once dates are acquired, prelims turn to dinner plans and coupling. Clearly you want a compatible dinner group with dates who will all get along. Your most common result is the "we're all in the same sorority and our dates are all in the same fraternity" setting. They're brothers so it makes for automatic conversation flow and happy people all around. What guys don't realize is how much we try to accommodate what we think they'll like. Turns out most guys are capable of handling whatever you throw at them and cannot believe how we put ourselves out for something so trivial. But where would the stress stem from if we weren't so determined to make the perfect evening?
The Big Day: Girls are up by 11 a.m. to prep for the day. Forget homework because the day is all about setting things in motion for that night. Before any heavy prep work begins you've got to clean your room just in case all goes well and your date comes home with you for some post-event celebrations. Manicures and pedicure appointments happen in the early afternoon for the high maintenance girls. Trips to one, several or all malls in the area to get shoes and accessories are a must. Then there are frantic trips to your friends' apartments or dorm rooms to try on dresses because you just don't like what you have. All this followed by a liquor run and the "just wanted to make sure you're all set" call to your date.
Then we hit the showers (making sure to shave our legs--this is a fancy event after all) and go through an extended version of our daily primping routine. We finish just in time to grab our dates and head over to dinner, which is most likely at Anotherthyme, George's or Parizade.
Once dinner is done, it's pregame time and then the actual date function. At the event, the outcome of your evening is anyone's guess. You've got the optimal situation where you and your date have a great time, dance all night and maybe even go home for a little action. Other possible results (in no particular order): you ditch your date and take home somebody else's, you have an ok ay but uncomfortable time with your date because it turns out that he's hot but completely not for you, your date takes home someone else or your platonic friend date jumps over the line and becomes a hook-up date.
The Aftermath: Despite all the hard work and planning, it's pretty much a crapshoot until you awake the next morning to sort out details, like where you are and who is next to you. And though much of the DFSD has subsided, there are still sources of anxiety. Did the date have fun? What's your situation with the guy now? How did you spend that much on a bar tab? Why are your feet so dirty (as they inevitably are despite never walking on grass)?
And this is why we bemoan date functions. The concept is simple but the reality is complicated. I guess this is why so many senior girls before me heralded one-night stands and often skipped on date functions. But the truth is we never give up on date functions. That would make us quitters, and we're Duke students--we don't quit, we just procrastinate.
Jen Wlach is a Trinity senior. Her column appears every other Friday.
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