Ferris Bueller once waxed poetically, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." OK, OK, I'll save my favorite clichéd movie lines and general college sappiness for my FOCUS kiddies and sophomore friends who mistakenly ask me about how it feels to be graduating in less than a month.
Let's face it — either you're an underclassman who's heard similarly nostalgic lines from older friends or you're a senior who can't stop thinking about your last Spring Fling or bowl of dining hall butternut bisque.
In the spirit of "lasts," in my final Monday column, I'm going to take a minute to look around and reflect on what I overanalyze best and babble on about most: dating.
Four years of college have flown by just like everyone told me that they would — I don't know where senior year went. But at the same time, the beginning of freshman year seems like forever ago — I feel like I was a little kid back in 2006.
My wide-eyed, naïve, 17-year-old self didn't go on a single date freshman year. Nope. I was the hallmate who wandered into friends' rooms on Sunday mornings with goofball stories that began with, "Guys, you'll never guess what happened to me last night..." I got tangled up in brief pseudo-relationships, dance floor make-outs and other optimistic yet unrequited crushes.
But like history or classics majors trying to get unrelated jobs, I liberal arts-ified and critically analyzed my experiences so I could apply them more broadly. KiddingI just read too far into my text messages.
A lot of people complain that they don't know how to date. But no one else really knows how to either — it's just taking pieces of related experiences, playing it by ear and hoping someone else is on the same page that you are. There aren't any dating experts, and even if there were, they'd have some serious credibility issues if they were single.
Actually, I learned many lessons about approaching relationships from my unsuccessful, non-date freshman-year experiences, several of which have resurfaced in this column my senior year.
For example, my first year of college, I learned that good decisions take a few questions into consideration, mid-date or pre-hookup. Am I enjoying this right now? Will I be OK if this situation doesn't work out in the long run? What am I going to think tomorrow or next week? Or even, is this worth it for a good story?
Similarly, I recognized that some people can navigate the friends-with-benefits situation, but I'm not one of them. If you like someone enough to consistently hook up with them, why wouldn't you consider them relationship-potential? And if you don't like them that much, why hook up with them? There are plenty of people who can separate the two, but you need to figure out if you're one of them.
I realized (occasional flings aside) that I'm only interested in guys who also make an effort to go on adventures outside the dorm room. It's also tough to get to know someone if you don't just hang out — hence why I like going on dates.
Last, I found that a proportional response strategy trumps "playing hard to get." When someone you like calls when they said they would and shows interest, you can reciprocate without worrying about coming on too strongly. It's much easier for both sides when they're upfront from the beginning. If you're interested, return your text messages like you would do for a friend. If you don't respond, the other person will get the picture eventually — it's easy.
Throwing all of this together, I think that it's similar to writing a literature review for a project. Like trying to synthesize a dozen articles for a research paper, you learn a lot about dating by drawing on different sources, making conclusions, then evaluating your research questions or what you're looking for dating-wise. Tisch is full of books to cite, just like Tufts is full of potential dates. Or hookups, or whatever; decide for yourself!
As early as freshman year, it was apparent that I'm a sappy date kind of person who tries to tease way more logic out of emotional situations than is, well, logical.
If only I had taken a class in behavioral economics…
During the course of this year, I had plenty of real dating adventures to apply my unpolished logic to, learn from and write about, thanks to my friends and the guys who willingly or unwittingly provided column fodder. All of you guys who read my column were like research advisors who covered my papers in red ink and sent me back to the drawing board.
I originally hoped that this column would discuss a few dating-related topics that people think about in the shower or daydream about in class. However, the reason these topics are tricky to write about is because they have no right answers and are all opinion based — it's impossible not to take a side.
If dating and relationships were simple, we wouldn't waste time agonizing about the next move or planning dates. I've been guilty of violating my own column advice a few times because even if you know what you "should" do, it's tough to follow through.
I don't know too much about post-graduation dating or meeting guys outside of class or clubs, but I'm crossing my fingers that college experiences translate into "real world" lessons as well as freshman stories did into senior year.
See you guys in the commencement issue; otherwise, say hi if you ever see me awkwardly trying to flirt in a bar next year.
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Emily is a senior majoring in engineering psychology. She can be reached at Emily.Maretsky@tufts.edu.
