What happened to dating? When did we begin to exchange the nervous yet exciting conversations over coffee for casual late nights in the union together, the dinner-and-a-movie dates for hookups in some dingy back room of a party?
There’s a split within our society that’s highlighted clearly at Hillsdale College. Instead of giving ourselves a chance to connect with people on an actual rather than superficial level, we settle for two easy routes that are both, ironically, extremes: hookups or “hillsdating.” Neither are the ideal, but both are popular choices for hormone-driven young adults at college to test the waters without committing to anything whatsoever.
However, the truth of the matter is that most of us at Hillsdale will not leave this campus with the security of knowing that a future husband or wife is waiting at the end of the graduation stage. In reality, we will have to pull ourselves together and learn how to interact with others if we want to get to know someone. We won’t have the network of interconnected friends to help us sort out confused feelings and emotional conflicts. We need to start changing this attitude, and we need to begin by cultivating a more open attitude towards rejection.
Many who refuse to “make it official” may believe that they are deterring the heartache and irresponsibility to be found in dating before you’re ready. Yet the process of discarding such an important concern in one’s life as dating is simultaneously a twisted interpretation of the sexual liberation movement and a setting-back of years of improvement in gender roles.
Neither party can experience the immense joy that is making room in one’s life for an “other,” or the bittersweet yet edifying sorrow when you lose someone you care about. The glorified culture of social purity and masked coquettishness seemingly extolled on Hillsdale’s campus through hillsdating does nothing to aid the formation of lasting bonds between students. It merely creates an air of juvenile flirtatiousness, mock chivalry, and most crucially, it produces skittish young people afraid to date until they have found “The One.”
The progress made in gender relations is stunted further every time a girl and a boy refuse to acknowledge their feelings and erect between themselves a barrier of concealed thoughts, guilty feelings, and evasive terms like “courting” (if they even make it that far). Girls become shy about interacting with boys, and those boys expend all their energy trying to impress those girls by making an impressive Ping-Pong shot or taking a shot of liquid courage instead of finding the nerve to talk to them.
Dating may seem like a daunting concept to anyone; this is not a critique of Hillsdale students’ reluctance only. Dating seems intimidating because it is often misunderstood. In our generation, it is taken to mean something far more binding than it is. By choosing between hookups or hillsdating, young people engage in active rebellion against this misunderstanding. However, dating is not the same as “going steady,” and so out of this flawed definition emerge imperfect solutions. Going on dates with someone in order to get to know him or her better is not committing to a relationship with that person. To date means to show acknowledged interest and to follow up on that interest intentionally, even if not exclusively.
College may be the last time that you are surrounded by so many like-minded peers. So, ask someone on a date. Ask multiple people on dates. Doing so is not being a “player.” It is being upfront and honest about your feelings. No relationship, whether it is platonic or romantic, can survive in the absence of honesty. And when you meet someone with whom you have a genuine connection, acknowledge it both publicly and privately. In such mutual acknowledgment is found the commitment of which we are all so afraid; dinner or drinks is not a marriage proposal.
So, please, ask that girl if she’d like to get coffee at Jilly Beans. Approach that boy about getting lunch sometime. And when you do, be honest about it. You, our campus, and the world in general will be a whole lot better off because of it.