I love that Valentine’s Day inspired a salon in my hometown to offer a “Hot Betty wax” — a bikini wax that leaves a heart-shaped landing strip and then they dye the special fuzz pink.
I didn’t take them up on the offer, but I think it’s awesome. I don’t love that Valentine’s Day inspires a lot of stress and gross commercialism. For many it goes by Singles Awareness Day (SAD, not be confused with Seasonal Affective Disorder, though that’s also prevalent this time of year), and even among couples it is rarely the beautiful celebration of mutual affection it’s cracked up to be.
But I will say this: Valentine’s Day at least promotes dating. Is it not a time-honored tradition to take your sweetheart out to a candlelit dinner on February 14?
I don’t want to become just another voice in the chorus telling students to date, but I think Jyoti Daniere, our devoted Director of Health and Wellness Education, has it right when she asks us to ask each other out. As a first-year, I participated in the first “Find Me Somebody to Love” dating game at the Grille, and honestly I loved it.
The Health Center isn’t even endorsing this column. Really. I loved it.
At what other point in my life will somebody set up a selection of eligible bachelors for me to choose from? It was fun, I met new people outside of the academic arena and my carefully selected date and I got a free fancy dinner.
My date and I didn’t go on to actually date, but he’s now a good friend — lucky, since he is someone I probably would not have met otherwise.
Speed dating in McCullough or the Dating Game at the Grille are not the most organic ways to get to know new people, but at least they’re opportunities to put yourself out there and get noticed, and I appreciate that they are the endeavors of someone who has students’ holistic well-being in mind.
They are also quick events, just an early evening’s worth of time, which battles the common complaint, one I have certainly made, that students just don’t have time to date.
The logic is discouragingly simple: if the average date takes a few hours and intense planning, but the average hook-up only takes 30 minutes (rough estimate here) and you were both already at that Suites party, the busy busy Midd-kid will choose the more time- efficient option.
To put it bluntly, I hate the more efficient option. I think sex just for sex’s sake has a place, and it’s certainly interesting to get to know (in the Biblical sense) many different people, to figure out what you like, etc., but I talk a lot about sex feeding a need, and there are lots of needs it doesn’t meet by itself. Dating meets them.
A date doesn’t always mean sex, but it offers a human connection, a respite from the stress of an overbooked schedule where all I have to do is be myself and witness someone else being. You don’t even have to buy into the “being” business to just enjoy hearing someone else’s stories and learning about a life experience different from your own.
It’s not advertised in our course catalog, but I’ve learned more from my peers here than I have in any class, so if anything, to get the most educational bang for my buck, I need to date. If you can consider socializing like a class that makes all of the other ones bearable, then a date is a guest lecture that might just change your life.
To bring this all back to Valentine’s Day, for all of the things the holiday is not, it is a good excuse to ask someone out on a date. Get to know a new Feb, ask that smart girl in your physics class to lunch, cozy up to the guy you thought about the whole time he was abroad.
Who can say no to “Would you be my Valentine?”
The L-Word - 02/11/10
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