Last spring, in an attempt to shed some light on the dating culture at DePauw, I wrote a piece, "DePauw Men Can't Woo," and received a lot of positive feedback ... even from DePauw men, whom I admit to throwing under the bus.
I realize I grouped all men on campus and would like to point out that there are some exceptional young men here to woo us every day (I'm looking at you Nick White '14).
Although not all of my readers bought into the Latino lover "bit," most people agreed that the dating culture on this campus is non-existent. (Side note: I am not saying that people do not date at DePauw. I have several friends in committed relationships. I say dating culture as in the part before the relationship: the courtship.)
However, this culture should not only be contributed to the male DePauw-pulation. Yes ladies, I'm putting it out there: we too are to blame.
After we spend hours anticipating the evening with a discussion of where we'll go, what we'll wear, and which guys we are excited to see, the DePauw females embark on our adventure.
It's always the alpha female's duty to text her male friend, "Hey I'm here. Let me in the side door."
When he does, we roll in with six to ten other women that we didn't tell them about beforehand and stand around awkwardly until someone shows us where to find the spirits. After the bravest one "checks for poison," the feasting begins.
Sixty minutes and eight shots later, the ladies are feeling much more at home and we can almost completely ignore the beer and urine scent wafting from the bathroom at the end of the hall.
We have already made nice with the rival tribe of girls from the sorority next door, made up of people we knew freshman year. The next thing we know, we're headed to the basement following the drunkest sophomore in the fraternity for what will most likely be a rump shakin' grind fest with more cheap vodka in between remixes of Original Don.
Now that we're drunk, the nerves have passed, and we can finally approach the cute guy we've been making eye contact with for the last hour.
We'll small talk flirtatiously; grazing his bicep with our hand to one, feel his muscles and two, to gauge his interest in our presence. If it's mutual, we'll exchange phone numbers and promise to hit each other up later. Right now, your best friend is dying to go to her favorite fraternity and you'd be a bad friend to ditch.
"Text me!" you'll say while running out the door. If he does this, there's a good chance we won't respond because we "didn't get your text," our "phone died," or we "fell asleep." These tactics can be referred to as instant friend-zoning.
If we did text the poor lad back, and stumble back to his house, we'll talk to a few of his friends, maybe rip some shots while he closes the door for some alone time.
We'll wake up slightly confused, realize where we are, grab our stuff, and get the heck out of there before he wakes up...in his favorite sweatshirt... that we will never ever give back.
- Dickman is a senior English Writing major from Zionsville, Ind.