Friday, August 24, 2001

No rationale for lack of dating on ‘Blind Date’ obsessed campus
by Jenny Specht
skiff staff

Students at TCU, being of a certain age, are obviously very interested in romantic relationships. Perhaps what TCU needs is a dating column. However, does anyone at TCU ever go on dates?

It certainly seems that for a campus so consumed by episodes of “Blind Date,” very few people actually go out on dates.

Let’s back up. What is a date? (www.Dictionary.com) defines it as “an engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.”

Very concise, but let’s put it into practice: A date is when the boy picks up the girl and they go somewhere — anywhere — but it has to be somewhere.

A date involves asking in advance, a good-night walk to the door and in the middle probably a mediocre restaurant and stilted conversation.

Now here’s what a date is not: a date is not a trip to the Main where you both swipe your meal cards and charge a cyberwrap home to Daddy.

A date never involves a party where half of your time is spent in line for the bathroom (and the other half you really don’t remember).

And finally, though often confused for one, a date is not “watching a movie” in someone’s room (and if anyone out there has ever made it through a whole movie … well, you stand alone).

With these guidelines in mind, I decided to take a highly scientific survey whose actual scientific nature was somewhat less than that of the Purple Poll (see the Etc. page).

The query: How many dates (at TCU) have you been on in the last year?

Upon questioning eight girls in my hall who happened to be awake and home around 12:30 a.m., these were the number of dates for each girl: one, one,10 (but nothing to write home about),12, six (but twice as many when she was home for the summer), 12, 24 (but she has a boyfriend), zero (but she has a boyfriend).

After some sketchy math calculations, I estimated that this gives each girl a 10 percent chance of having had a date on a specific day. Ten percent? Not odds I’d ever bet on.

So let’s examine this phenomenon and try to explain it. Obviously, it’s not caused by a lack of attractive people on this campus filled with ex-Homecoming royalty.

A possible solution could be the gal to guy ratio that TCU girls like to blame everything on (actual quote: “They’re out of lettuce in the salad bar? It’s because there’s a 50-1 ratio of girls to guys here, you know, and girls eat a lot of lettuce”).

But even though there are more stray cats than boys wandering around here, this can’t possibly be the sole reason for my dateless friends.

If we can’t blame it on the boys, then we’ll look to the girls. Shouldn’t they suck it up, grit their teeth and start doing the asking?

Logically, girls are the ones who tend to like dating (as evidence, another actual quote, from a high school boyfriend, while we were on a date: “Don’t you just get sick of having to go out on dates? I do.”). Therefore, they should initiate the dating process.

However, what I’ve found is that girls don’t enjoy dating nearly as much as being asked on dates, negating this entire train of thought.

I’m puzzled, I really am, and can only suggest that everyone compare dating at TCU to El Niño, a weather event which occurs sporadically and with little explanation.

Meanwhile, I’d like to give out a piece of advice: Turn off “Blind Date” tonight and risk experiencing real-life dating drama instead of watching it on TV.

Jenny Specht is a junior English and political science major from Fort Worth. She can be reached at j.l.specht@student.tcu.edu.