Advice | 
(0)So picture yourself at a castle party (or East Room party to be a bit more up to date). You’re dancing with that cute guy from your Econ class. You decide to look past the fact he smells like alcohol and the stairwell in Tenney – we all know what that smells like – and hope he thinks you’re cute too. So you dance, you chat a little and you’re sure everything is going great, maybe you’ll even hang out sometime. Finally he takes a step closer, leans in as if to tell you a secret, strategically places his hand on your butt and says “So..uh…you wanna come by my room later?” He says this with a smirk, as if it’s a rhetorical question. If you were trying to seduce me with your creativity you failed. Get a new line buddy. What’s the big deal right? That’s standard procedure around here. But this interaction has become so common place that I have basically run out of sarcastic and witty ways to respond.
I’d like to ask the men on this campus how they would feel if we were dancing and I spontaneously grabbed their butt, and whispered in their ear “see you in my room in five.” Actually don’t answer that. Whatever happened to asking a girl out to lunch if you wanted to spend time with her? On a campus with a clear majority of women you would think things would be in their favor. Not so much. Let’s say you are invited to some guy’s room to hang out in a group and you decide to go. After all what else do you have to do on a Saturday night when the only other option is the bingo tournament going on in the pub? You aren’t in this guys room for longer than five minutes before you get the feeling you are in an episode of national geographic – except the rolls are switched. The females (which are the majority in the room) vie for the male’s attention. The three males in the room (odds are obviously in their favor) sit back relaxed and, well, take their pick. Of course the environment does not help; you are socializing in a Damman suite common room that fits about 5 and ½ people. If you so choose to venture into any of the doubles or the singles you have two choices: you can sit on the floor or the bed. It would seem that no one else in the room finds it weird to be sitting in some guy’s bed with the sheets rolled down and a dirty pair of boxers hanging from the mattress. I observe that an unsuspecting freshman has won the competition – or lost depending on your perspective and taking into consideration just exactly what she has won. She basks in the attention as her new drunken upperclassmen friend places his hand on her thigh and hands her another drink. Really it’s such a common scene that it took me a while to realize it’s not normal. After you graduate from Manhattanville lets say you meet someone nice in your office – is your first and only line really going to be “so..uh…you wanna come by my room later?” I think not. What is it about our environment and social dialogue (or lack there of) between males and females that calls for this type of interaction?
I realize that we are young and in college and that society tells us that means we are suppose to approach these four years in college as if they are simply an interval – an exception – to how we spend the rest of our lives. I beg to differ. I think there are ways that one can enjoy college (yes for the drinking and partying too) but still hold meaningful relationships and interactions with the opposite sex. I challenge the males on this campus to attempt a real conversation – in a venue that is not a castle party or their rooms – with a female on this campus. I challenge the females on this campus to come up with a never-been-used witty response to apply the next time a guy asks you to come back to his room and sit on his bed as substitution for real social interaction. If you come up with one, let me know.
