Music drowns out any possible opportunity for conversation as you elbow your way through the crowd. Someone spills beer all over you. By the time you make it across the room to approach that hottie who caught your eye, he or she has disappeared. Has the Tufts dating scene really come to this?
"The dating scene is really lame here. It's an extension of the social scene," said one disgruntled sophomore, one of many students who asked to remain anonymous for fear that associating their name with their quote might have a negative effect on their desirability.
Arriving at college freshman year, many students hold high expectations of meeting "the one" - a captivating person with whom they will forge a significant relationship. The prospect of living away from parents, restrictions, and the schoolmates they've known since kindergarten sparks the belief that their chances of meeting someone is greater in college - though the proof of this, it seems, is lacking.
"In high school there weren't that many great guys, so I thought that when I went to college and there would be so many more boys, it would be different," said one freshman girl. "But I haven't met anyone yet."
For some, the expectations have since disappeared. "I haven't been out on a date since I've been here. Dating is obsolete in the college scene," said another freshman female. "A relationship would be nice, but I'm not expecting anything."
From limited funds to raging hormones, some students offered theories on why the dating scene is so deficient on college campuses. "College students are broke, so they don't want to spend the money to go out to dinner," said one sophomore female.
"For every 50 random hook-ups, there's maybe one date," said another sophomore female. "I think ideally girls would like dates, but guys aren't willing to give them. [Guys] used to have to go out on dates to get play. Now they can just go to a frat party and get some." In her frustration, she muttered, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
Yet, there seems to be some misunderstanding. According to freshman Justin Korval, guys are willing to take girls out. "I would like nothing more than to spend money on the ladies," he said.
But then there's the issue of how to meet that special someone. Perhaps due to the perceived decline in the campus social life, many students say they are generally unsure about where they should go to meet possible mates.
"Unless you are introduced to someone, where are you supposed to meet someone? The frats? Club Hotung? A protest?" sophomore Jonathan Lee asked. "I think we should start a Sane Single People Looking for a Long Term Relationship at Tufts Coalition," he suggested. "SSPLLTRTC," he added after a long pause.
Sophomore Matt Alford has a theory on why people have such a hard time meeting potential boyfriends and girlfriends. "There are three main ways of meeting people. You meet people in your dorm, but then that's weird because you see them everyday," he said. "The second is through parties - and people going to parties aren't looking for relationships. They're looking for random hook-ups, which I think is much more prevalent on campus than dating."
The third way? "Classes, and that's just weird. When you meet someone sitting in class, it's hard to get beyond Spanish class or math class," he said.
One male junior agreed that the classroom is not the place to meet people. "Unless you're in a teeny foreign language class, there's no interaction. You all just sit there and listen to the lecture and then you leave," he said. "I can't just go up to someone in a big lecture class and introduce myself. They don't want to know my name."
For some, age figured into the equation. Junior Paul Kravitz speculated that random hook-ups happened more among underclassmen than his fellow upperclassmen.
"I think that it has a lot to do with age, and it's also along the lines of drinking a lot," he said. "Freshmen and sophomores go out partying more. Juniors and seniors go out, but they don't just go out looking to get drunk. I think that freshmen and sophomores think that they'll have an easier time meeting people if they get drunk before they go out."
Sophomore Jeff Fox agreed. "It has a lot to do with age - I bet a lot more freshmen hook up than other classes," Fox said. "After freshman year, you're probably sick of the random hook-ups and there's more of a chance for a serious relationship." Kravitz and his girlfriend, sophomore Jenny Ng, seem to have broken the rules when they got together. For the past year, they have been experiencing Tufts as few seem to - as a couple.
"My boyfriend and I had a class together last fall and we sat kind of near each other during lecture," Ng remembers. "We also had a mutual friend in the class, and the three of us would study together sometimes. One day, Paul asked me out and we went to the North End," she said. She added that the couple enjoys frequent visits to Boston, as opposed to hitting frat row on the weekends.
"I guess the way I look at it, people who are going to parties a lot, alone or with a couple of friends, are the people who are looking for a hook-up, not a serious relationship," Kravitz said. "There are plenty of people looking for relationships, they just haven't found each other yet."
Availability also plays into finding compatible mates. Although few students knew of on-campus relationships, most could name friends who were involved in long-distance relationships.
"I think it sucks that so many girls come to college with excess baggage - boyfriends. It's college - have fun!" one freshman male said.
His roommate shared his frustration. "I don't like people who have girlfriends and boyfriends at home. They'll cheat with you, and everything will be going along just fine, but then, all of a sudden, they grow a conscience and decide that they can't do it anymore," he said.
While many felt that this social trend is universal to all colleges, some felt that the dating scene at Tufts is different.
"The dating scene is so lacking here that it forces us to go into Boston to meet girls from other colleges," freshman Justin Singer said.
"The only thing we have for a social life, which is dying down, is frat parties," sophomore Justin Pandolfino said.
Fox addressed the lack of "girlfriend/boyfriend" activities on campus. "If you date someone at Tufts, you can't do nice boyfriend-and-girlfriend things. You don't want to go to some frat party and have all these drunk people spilling beer all over her," he explained. "There aren't enough nice things to do with your girlfriend here."
"Weekends at Tufts can be summarized by girls in tank tops and guys with beer and everyone's just looking to hook up," Lee said. "That's not really the way to find an actual relationship.
"I think that part of it is the emphasis on the party scene at Tufts. If every Friday and Saturday night you expect to go out and get piss-drunk and hook up with someone, when are you going to meet someone you actually want to see the next morning?" he continued.
So what are Tufts students looking for? For the most part: a solid relationship.
"I don't mind the random hook-up thing, but I'd rather have a real relationship," Pandolfino said.
"There are a lot of people interested in dating, but they don't know how to go about it in such a large setting, so they choose to get their kicks by doing the random hook-up thing," Alford said.
"I'm sure that there are plenty of people who are in strong relationships and are very happy," Lee said. "I just don't happen to be one of them."
