Les Miserables: Negative norms to positive pastimes

I had a topic lined up for this week, but I'm putting it on hold because it appears to me that there are more pressing issues in need of immediate address.

Last issue, I wrote an article about the dating culture here on the University of Richmond campus. And here we are, two weeks later and still -- I have not received one response. Not a letter, not a comment, nothing.

I know people were reading the article because it was the third article along the "Most Popular" list for at least two days. People on this campus are reading the article, but not one reader -- male, female, undergrad, graduate -- no one has disputed anything I wrote.

I am absolutely astounded.

I know this campus reacts when they want to. Most people reading this article right now have witnessed the occurrence of multiple uproars caused by The Collegian articles throughout only the past three or so years.

So I ask you -- why is no one disputing this? Was it the fact that Fall Break or midterms cut into response time, or could it be -- I shudder to think -- that everyone agreed with what I said?

If unanimous agreement with my previous article is indeed what's going on here, we have a much bigger problem than I thought -- we cannot just sit back and add to it. We may just spend a short amount of time here, but the issues that will result from the current dating norm will certainly take tolls for longer than that.

Something needs to change -- that's obvious. The question is what -- where exactly do we start to change a norm that seems to be part of such an engrained social tradition?

I have a couple of ideas for your consideration.

Balance the distribution of wealth. I have said it before and I'll say it again -- the lodges are patriarchal at best. I understand that this college was once single-sexed (I doubt there is any confusion about which sex this was). The fact that men are expected to host parties and pay for the alcohol that the majority of the campus population consumes is unfair, and the resulting dependency of women on men for party plans results in semi-desperate measures which in turn diminish both male and female dating potentials alike. (If you would like a further elaboration, please refer to my column in the February issue of The Collegian).

Get off campus. We hear this advice all the time, and without a firm push we really do have a tendency to roll our eyes and turn our backs on the idea.

But seriously -- get off campus. It's not easier said than done -- it's pretty easy to accomplish, especially with the new "To the Bottom and Back" stop right here at our very own C-lot throughout the weekend. Go mingle in the Fan district or downtown on weekends -- if you're not old enough for some of the bars, there are certainly plenty of concerts and events that you are old enough for and -- with some exceptions -- most of them are awesome in my experience.

Check out museum exhibits, First Friday, or different sorts of events at Virginia Commonwealth University. Eat brunch or dinner in college hotspots like Three Monkeys or Deluxe. Go to "Away" football games at University of Virginia or Virginia Tech and find out what's going on on that campus after the game.

Not only will your physical relocation remind you of the discrepancy between accepted behaviors in society versus the bubble we know and love, but it will also help you to meet students from other nearby schools and expand your community -- and your gene pool. You will uphold universally standard dating behavior and infiltrate it back into campus with your presence upon return from the outside.

Bring people here. When you've met them, bring 'em back! People like high school friends and siblings that you've already known for a while aren't bad visitors either, although they do have their "own lives," as they are so prone to remind you (or ... just me?).

In any case, visitors from the other realm are helpful in pointing out oddities that you in turn realize you have come to accept over time.

Visitors that know you and have known you for awhile also tend to be great at illuminating -- and at times, disapproving of -- changes in your behavior that may have been too subtle for you to catch before their initial occurrence.

Getting a new outlook on your everyday reality is refreshing, and often serves the very substantial purpose of helping you "snap out of it" when your own hypnosis inhibits your ability to see that you are being misled by an equally hypnotized majority.

Hey -- it can even help you to laugh about it, something you may realize we rarely dare to do. An idea I want to toss out there in terms of meeting people is taking up a hobby that requires some kind of participation by other (non-Richmond) students, who you can look toward to teach you (i.e. put up signs requesting a student guitar teacher or cooking instructor -- if you can't pay them, offer to trade skills because I promise you it often works) or simply to join you (i.e. start a book club or a sewing circle, organize a protest for a cause you feel strongly about -- or go to one -- whatever!).

No matter what happens, you will end up meeting someone if you put yourself out there. And that someone can expand your social horizons.

Stay here over the summer. I've done it twice now, and with confidence I insist that this is one of the most helpful things a Richmond student can do to break down bubble walls.

The campus is a totally changed place due to its significantly different population composition, and meeting people in the community at large is much, much easier (especially if you are living and/or working somewhere off campus).

You could even sublet from someone, and experience being in the place you've always been in but in an entirely new way. The significance you have appropriated to many of the campus-inherited "meanings" start to disintegrate with perceptual expansion, and again, tone down any generally abnormal behaviors you may have gotten used to using or dealing with in the dating field.

Keep in touch with the alums you love. Many of them are still here -- more, I think, than many of us realize. They have entered the "real world" in various ways, and not only can serve to provide a personalized and almost always changed perspective of Richmond life in comparison to the ones they now lead, but they can also take you along for parts of their ride.

Getting to know people through people you know is easier, and it is also much easier to get people who live outside of Richmond walls to do pretty much anything else outside of them with you.

I could keep going, but I think these five ideas seem to provide sufficient starting points from which we can begin to nip our current gender divide in the bud. Quite frankly, we won't be this dateable forever and we're all wasting time from our peaks being absolutely miserable with one another.

We're all young, we're all beautiful, we're all energetic, we're all selfish and we're all more excited about life than we are likely to ever be again -- let's have fun! Every moment spent crying over cheaters or mindlessly hooking up with someone arbitrary is a moment thrown to the superficial winds and blown away forever.

Remember those dances in junior high, when boys and girls used to stand on opposite ends of the room from each other and talk about -- rather than to -- each other? I do, too, usually with a laugh and a mental applause for maturity. It stops being both funny and commendable, however, when I realize that here I am almost eight years later standing against the same wall and wondering when everyone will dance together.