There are some nights at Penn that really do seem like "the golden days" -- and then there are many more that make me feel like a cranky Golden Girl. Last night, while at a bacchanalia over on Beige Block, I definitely fell into the latter category. Recently single for the first time at Penn, my friends insisted that I go out with them to a party -- eyeshadows, lipsticks, and thongs... Oh my! Truth be told, these were exactly the kind of nights that used to make me jump into my Juicy sweats and cuddle up with a boyfriend, but peer pressure is a bitch. And speaking of bitches, my night was turning into one...
Under black lights and a Bob Marley poster, amidst a cloud of smoke at the TEP house, I couldn't stop staring at the scene. One senior frat boy was shoving his crotch into a freshman girl, spilling his stale beer on the floor in order to do a particularly professional reach-around. In the other corner, another girl in a halter-top was trying to wrangle in a boy, tossing her head around as if her hoop earrings were lassoes. This was what I had been missing out on the whole time while I was in a relationship? A gang bang and shallow sex? I had to ask myself, is there an alternative to this singles scene somewhere over the rainbow?
The next morning, Maronda and I met to nurse our hangovers. We surveyed the same scene from the night before at an alternate location -- Izzy and Zoe's. Izzy's is the hottest spot on campus to see the "after" shots of the parties. So we ate egg-white omlettes with a side of feeling better about not being that girl with the puke on the back of her head. Speaking of feeling better about not being in someone else's shoes, one look at Maronda's face and my Burberry loafers were looking a hell of a lot nicer. Maronda has been dating Nixon for about two years now and they have hit a losing streak. They still spend five nights a week together, and have those "great conversations," but shit has gone sour. It's senior year, they're in love, but they have been fundamentally unhappy with each other for quite some time now. They get into circular arguments. Nixon throws his words like a caveman swings his club at his woman's head and drags her away to his side -- of the cave, that is. I felt tired and fed up just listening to her woes.
In the fresh air of my single apartment I got to thinking: why does it have to be either a walk of shame after a one night stand or a walk right into the college variety of marriage? It seems to me that dating at Penn is a black and white affair. The black is too exhausting and suffocating and the white holds no color, nothing at all -- except for an embarassing appointment at Student Health. (Who wants to let everyone in the waiting room hear you request an appointment for that weird thing on your lip?)
The question spilled forth from my lips: where is the casual dating at this school? We may be number five on the U.S. News chart, but we're second to last on the dating charts. I only have one friend who actually goes out to dinner or coffee with a guy and gets to know something about him --other than the fact that he shaves his balls-- before she hooks up with him. But then again, she's got a British accent and big old DSL's so she doesn't count.
The next day at College Hall, cigarette smoking from between my lips, I was counting the minutes before I had to go back into class. Just then that thin guy with the shaggy hair -- the one who shops at Urban Outfitters and makes lots of post-modern statements about racism -- asked me out for coffee at Cosi. I looked around in panic. Who is this creep? People don't do that: what the fuck is he thinking? He must be some kind of weirdo or something, probably dropped an ex-girlfriend from the fifth floor of Huntsman and is going to wrangle me into his weird, alternative kind of lifestyle where fat people have group sex with the Annenberg grad students. I had jumped over the black and white rainbow and into the grey munchkin land and you know what: munchkins are fucking creepy. I guess there's no place like home...
