MIRROR 02.13.2015
some have sex. some don’t.| 3
the mirror love survey| 4-5
A QUEER DATING SCENE EMERGES| 6
ANONYMOUS romantic messages| 8 ALISON GUH// THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2// MIRROR
EDITOR’S NOTE
Love, Revisted The Mirror looks back at our greatest hits on love spotlight
Lately I have sur veyed campus with an extra jiggle in my step. I have ignored a bit more cheerfully than usual the humming of the paper shredders in Baker-Berr y as scores of readers gather to destroy ever y print edition of this column they can find. Certainly, my readers have become writers — of hate mail — but nothing can tamp down your Mirror Editor. Not this week. You see, fair reader, Valentine’s Day has almost arrived. For one, as even a sympathetic reader will admit — and my readers, now fatigued of tending to the burns resulting from coffee spilt in the tumult they experienced after finishing a weekly Note, are hardly sympathetic — the writing in this column exclusively employs clichés and other dreck. I’m not ashamed to have guarded the hope that readers might let my meaningless platitudes slide around Valentine’s Day, of all days. There’s another reason I’m positively grinning at the thought of Valentine’s Day. I’m under no presumption. After the ver y first Note, when I forever linked my identity with soggy prose and self-obsession, I have no chance of finding love. (Those who have seen my photograph above the paper version of this column might retort that I never had one.) These days, the best I can do to experience romance is read others’ stories. That’s why all week I have been squirming with vicarious pleasure as I publish a magazine dedicated to love. While I have spoiled my shot, I’ll permit myself to think that this column brings one or two of you together. See that cutie ahead of you in the papershredder line? Go get ’em.
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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR CHARLIE RAFKIN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY
PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE
EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE
What’s the most romantic spot in Hanover?
B y james jia
Love, Dartmouth Style July 1, 1997 Justin A. Carrino ’98 There is a dichotomy in the way we perceive relationships at Dartmouth. According to the author, there’s the “common-law marriage” (serious relationship) and the “one-night mistake” (hookup). Students’ desire for the perfect relationship leads to an all or nothing approach to love. Their relationships are either very serious or very shallow. Maybe if students took a more laid back approach to life, as the author suggests, they would be happier. This isn’t to suggest a lowering of standards, but rather more openness towards emotional connections. After all, even a relationship that isn’t destined to last forever can be worthwhile. Best Line: “Maybe if we at Dartmouth stopped putting so much pressure for perfection, we would find that there actually can be romance at Dartmouth.” Behind the Green Door — love and sex at Dartmouth May 29, 2001 Hank Leukart ’01 Even in 2001, students’ attitudes toward love and sex varied greatly. Fourteen years later the individual student narratives — dealing with topics ranging from oral sex to the homosexual dating scene — are still compelling to read. Whether we relate more with Brad, the 22-year-old virgin saving himself for “the one,” Tyler, the student with 20 sexual partners or Sarah, the serial monogamist who doesn’t believe in engaging in casual sex, it’s reassuring to know that past classes had the same struggles and decisions to make about relationships and sex on campus. As much as the hookup culture is perceived to be the dominant attitude on campus, it’s interesting to see that it’s not the only one. Best Line: “All of those interviewed endorsed cuddling after a sexual encounter.” Alums Learn to Navigate Relationships Oct. 17, 2001 Reena Dutta ’04 In this article, alumni are interviewed about what they think about forming relationships after graduation. Overall, the “real world” is both better and worse for forming relationships than Dartmouth. On one hand, people are less judgmental
What is Dartmouth’s “hookup culture” really like?
Maggie Rowland and Catherine Treyz/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The 2011 article by Zoe Williams explored dating — although Williams was a bit jaded. and stereotypical than they seem at the College, where people are placed into a specific social niche. On the other hand, the real world doesn’t have classes and extracurriculars for one to meet people of similar age with similar interests. As a result, meeting people is much more labor-intensive after college. Across the board, it seems like hookup culture is something that alumni grew out of, as they all said they preferred to be in committed relationships. Best Line: “Sex is much better when you’re in love.” Dartmouth Loves Dating? Feb. 24, 2011 Zoe Williams ’11 Perhaps the reason behind the question mark at the end of the title, the author starts off the piece by giving readers the advice, “I can sum up my attitude towards dating at Dartmouth in three words: Don’t do it.” Williams is about as jaded as one can get with regard to the Dartmouth dating scene. She laments how relationships put strain on ties with other friends before failing and leading to more collateral damage on the couple’s individual social lives. At the same time, though, she criticizes hookups, as they can also potentially lead to serious relationships. Maybe the dating
K, nice rant. Is love real?
Ah, idyllic Hanover! Isolation brings The only thing more stomach-churnI know that Mirror readers have its perks — our cozy campus is replete ing than the phrase “hookup culture” lost many nights of sleep wonderwith spots for cuddling and canoodling. is when older journalists aspire ing about my thoughts on love. It’s Occom Pond and the River might make to explore “hookup culture” on trending on Yik Yak. It’s zoomed to for popular choices, but I’d say the 1902 college campuses. It’s really not the top of the questions that admisroom. What could be more romantic that complex, and it’s also totally, sions officers must field. (The Mirror than wooden tables, academic rigor and a utterly, completely played out. is known for its throngs of high-school keen awareness of your own mortality? If Turn your attention elsewhere, readers, all of whom are fascinated by you can’t get snuggly in the fetid wasteland journalists. There are alcohol Charlie Rafkin’s inner life.) I’ll be brief. I’m called 1902, then perhaps the romance just bans to investigate. a softie. I think it’s real. isn’t right.
scene at Dartmouth is truly as bad as the author claims — and maybe cynicism isn’t productive, either. Best Line: “And for what? ... So that you can be forced into some horrible long-distance scenario when your D-plans don’t match up, which results in one of you blacking out and hooking up with your trippee and the other one starting a sketchy fling with a random Spaniard you meet in a bar in Barcelona?” We Found Love in a Hopeless, Awkward Place April 20, 2012 Gina Greenwalt ’14 Here’s a tr ue counterexample to the notion that dating at Dartmouth is impossible. In fact, some people say that it’s actually easier to start a relationship at Dartmouth since everyone sees each other a lot because it’s such a small school. Students here don’t have to drive, pay rent or live off campus like those at other larger universities, so it leaves a lot more time for socializing and establishing connections that could be potential relationships. The story presents a number of successful student couples on campus. Best Line: “One thing about a relationship in college is that you can see people a lot more than you could in high school.”
Some Have Sex. Others Don’t. Even as campus prizes sexual encounters, some remain virgins. story
B y victoria nelsen
She left his room, feeling disappointed in herself and unsure whether or not this meant she was no longer a virgin. The night had not been the fairy tale that others had described. The environment lacked support, and afterward she regretted feeling like she had submitted to Dartmouth’s hookup culture. Though she felt like she had lost her virginity that night, she didn’t understand what that really meant. The uncertainty made her think critically about the idea of virginity and what “losing” it really meant. After more consideration, she realized that this was not the night when she had truly lost her virginity. Rather, she lost it with her ex-girlfriend over a year before. She believes that, by having sex with a man, she may just have been trying to invalidate her sexuality. “What is it about men and their equipment that has this power that no one else has over women?” she said. “Virginity is just a total social construct. It wasn’t my first time having sex. It was just my first time having sex with that guy.” This woman, who identifies as queer, asked to remain anonymous because she is not out to her family about her sexual orientation. Sociology department chair Kathryn Lively said that the definition of virginity is meaningless. In her class “Love, Romance, Intimacy and Dating,” virginity is covered over the course of a week, and Lively said “that students have a wildly varying definition of what it means to be a virgin.” Before having sex for the first time with her then-girlfriend, the anonymous woman was given room to question her sexuality. On the night they had sex, the two women sat down to have an “uncomfortable” conversation about what it meant for them to have sex, which was “one of the most incredible things anyone has ever done for me,” the woman said. Even with this meaningful and supportive experience, she said she never felt having sex changed her as a person, and she compared it to a first kiss or driving a car for the first time. Lively said that the broader, more conservative cultural discourse of virginity holds white women’s virginity on a pedestal and ignores the virginity of everyone else. “It’s not just a gender dynamic. It’s also racially loaded,” Lively said. “We’ve never, as a society, been concerned with women of color’s virginity. There’s different power dynamics that get wrapped up into this concept.” Nkenna Ibeakanma ’16, who is black-British, said she sees the traditional view of virginity as “harmful,” noting that humans are also animals with sexual desires. She stressed that she speaks for herself and not for all women with her identity. “It can be turned against you,” she said. “If you don’t prize your virginity, then you’re a whore.” For Ibeakanma, constructions of
virginity and sexuality are shaped by race. “There’s not the same kind of sense of innocence or fragility [with black women] as there is with women of other races,” she said. A woman, who chose to remain anonymous due to the intimate nature of the topic, said that her lack of sexual experience and virginity does not stem from moral or religious reasons. She said she was not opposed to having sex in high school, but she also never felt pressure to hook up. Now, in college, she feels inexperienced compared to everyone else because of her lack of high school experience. According to this woman, virginity does not carry a stigma on Dartmouth’s campus, but people generally assume that their peers have had sex. “Virgins are like unicorns,” she said. “Most people don’t really talk about being virgins.” When it comes to hooking up, she said that she does not mind her virginity as she does not participate in the drinking culture much. She said that sometimes it feels like it is harder to begin a relationship, as many relationships start with hookups, which often occur when students are drinking. At Dartmouth, many students expect to engage in some sort of sexual activity, a notion that Lively said she has observed through an anonymous survey activity, which she facilitates during the first class of the term. The 2014 Dartmouth Health Survey, however, suggests that not every student on campus is having sexual intercourse. According to the survey, 28 percent of Dartmouth students have not had intercourse in the last year, and 36 percent have never had vaginal sex. Jessica King Fredel ’17, the codirector of the “Voices” performance, a series of performances created and performed by self-identified women, said that she does not believe in the concept of virginity. Rather, she sees it as heteronormative and sexist, she said. She specifically does not like the language used when discussing virginity, as it can refer to women’s virginity being lost and taken by a man. King Fredel said that losing female virginity has historically been linked with a loss of value, and she added that virginity often ascribes a label to a person and attaches importance to a part of his or her identity that might not matter to that person. “I think that sex is another way for people to connect with each other and to be intimate,” King Fredel said. “It’s interesting to me that it is an identity that becomes so labeled.” Gustavo Mercado Muñiz ’16, who identifies as gay, believes that having oral sex or any intercourse beyond that marks a loss of virginity, but he said that the definition changes for different people. Mercado Muñiz said that in his experience most gay men define sex as anal penetration, unless they prefer not to have anal sex at all.
“For me, it’s about the intimacy. It’s not about the specific act of it,” Mercado Muñiz said. “Once you get to the point of having that contact with another person, there should be a level of trust, a level of respect and a level of safety and comfort. That’s what makes me define it as anything sexual — period.” Mercado Muñiz said that he is a virgin in part because he believes hookup culture does not always lend itself to safety, comfort and sobriety when hooking up. He added that he thinks it causes impersonality and distance between the two parties. As a Sexual Health Peer Advisor, or Sexpert, Mercado Muñiz is comfortable talking to others and being open about his virginity, but like others, the social constructions surrounding virginity bother him. “I find it a really strange cultural phenomenon to measure anything by,” he said. “There’s way too much judgment but also importance placed on this experience that is just a regular part of life.” Jonah Sternthal ’18 said that he is a virgin because he does not want sex to be frivolous. He said that he does not really participate in what he considers to be the hookup culture on campus because he is not interested in it. Sternthal does not feel that virginity is stigmatized, and he is open with his own experience. “I want to have sex with someone who is special to me and who I actually like,” he said. “For me, I don’t want it to be a frivolous act.” Annie Gardner ’15, who was a virgin until last summer, said that sex and desirability are correlated to social capital here at the College. When she arrived on campus her freshman fall, she had never kissed anyone, which she said resulted in an enormous level of insecurity. She saw her lack of experience as a stigma, but various upperclasswomen told her not to worry about it, which is how she would advise others now. Gardner said that she grew up with
the more traditional notion of what virginity entailed — “the stereotypical, heteronormative penis and vagina that was explained in the sex talk” — but that she now defines it more vaguely. “The closest I could get to a definition is that it’s a first intimate experience of some sort,” she said. “I don’t see how you can narrow it much more than that without cutting out a branch of people.” As a virgin at Dartmouth, Gardner felt uncomfortable going home with anyone because she felt like sex was expected, so she avoided it altogether. Still, she said her place in the hookup culture has not changed since she had sex, though she said she is more comfortable in herself and is no longer insecure about her experience. Lively said that sociology professor at Vanderbilt University Laura Carpenter has researched the different ways in which people approach virginity. Some see virginity as a gift, where someone values it and is careful about their first time having sex. It can also be seen as a process, where it serves as a developmental milestone. Lastly, some see it as a stigma, in which case the person may want to get rid of virginity. Hookup culture is good for people who view their virginity as a process and convenient for people who see it as a stigma, but it can be heartbreaking for people who believe that their virginity is a gift, Lively said. She added that she believes that hookup culture is easier for women who are virgins to navigate, as male virgins might be ashamed of their lack of experience. Lively said the College’s sexual culture is similar to that of many campuses, though most students see it as being unique. She said that it is not a product of Dartmouth but rather of broader societal norms and expectations at this age. “One of the things that I try to do in my class is to illustrate that hookup cultures exist on all campuses,” Lively said.
MIRROR //3
THE D RUNS THE
NUMBERS
59, 25
T h e p e rc e n t o f members of the Class of 2015 and Class of 2018 respectively who have been in love at Dartmouth.
75, 63 The percent of members of the Class of 2017 and Class of 2016 respectively who always or almost always use protection.
53
The percent of total survey respondents who matriculated as virgins and are still virgins.
35 The number of respondents who described their love life as “nonexistent ” in their survey responses.
48 Kimberlee John/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
In this week’s Mirror Exclusive Photo essay, available online, photo staffers Natalie Cantave and Kimberlee John highlight diverse couples across campus. In their artist’s note, Cantave and John write that they learned that love does exist at Dartmouth — and it sometimes arrives in unexpected ways. Here, Justin Chan ’16 and Shayn Jiang ’15 enjoy a quiet moment in the stacks.
The percent of respondents who have had a friends with benefits relationship and think sex is too casual on campus.
4// MIRROR
The Mirror conducted sent out a survey to the campus Listerv on Monday, February . We received
These results are from responses to a survey sent to the campus Listserv on Monday, Feb. 9. The Mirror received 467 responses.
MIRROR //5
Annika Park/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
6// MIRROR
A Queer Dating Scene Emerges
Shuoqi Chen/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
In isolated Hanover, queer students navigate a complex dating environment. story
B y kalie marsicano
Ever y Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night, I know exactly where and how to find potential hook-ups or even partners — I just drop by Webster Avenue sometime around 10 or 11 p.m. There, I can find basements full of men, with whom I can dance, join a quick game of pong or two and maybe even go to formal in future terms. My status as a white, affiliated, cisgender, heterosexual female has radically simplified my search for sex and romance on campus. For many queer students at the College, however, this isn’t necessarily the case. “Dar tmouth obviously has a much smaller queer community than it does a community at large, and I think that’ll naturally limit your pool, versus being in a major city like New York or San Francisco where there’s a high population of people in general and therefore a high population of LGBT people,” Akash Kar ’16, who identifies as gay, said. Queer is now commonly used as an umbrella term referring to sexual and gender identities that are not strictly heterosexual or cisgender. The acronym “LGBT” is commonly used to reference the queer community, although several variations exist, including “LGBTQ” and “LGBTQIA.” Whether or not someone chooses to make their sexual orientation explicitly known in public further complicates the possibility of finding sexual or romantic partners, as it narrows the options for potential partners even more, Amara Ihionu ’17 explained. “There’s a sizable amount of people who are out and proud, and then there’s definitely some people who are not so open about their sexuality,” Ihionu said. “Out of that, you still have your preferences in people and different kinds of characteristics you’re looking for. So it’s definitely harder to find someone who could really be a good fit for you.” Ihionu identifies as aromantic-asexual — in other words, she does not feel sexual attraction to any gender, nor does she experience romantic attraction. Rather, in a partner, Ihionu seeks something that straddles the borders between friendship and romance. Unsurprisingly, this presents some hurdles for finding a partner in the context of the what often appears to be a dominant hookup culture. “For me, intimacy isn’t inherently sexual. It could be emotional intimacy,” Ihionu said. “How many people would agree to a relationship in which they’re not going to have sex ever? I could imagine they’d just go running for the hills.” For other students, the primar y obstacle is the sheer size of the College’s queer population, which not only limits the pool of possible partners but also lends itself to a queer community where its difficult to maintain privacy in ones personal life. “You know someone that you’re interested in dating, or you know someone
who they’ve dated before or they’ve dated a friend,” Reese Kelly, the director of the Center for Gender and Student Engagement and interim director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, said. While this may help simplify the process of breaking the ice or finding potential partners for queer students, “it can also create tensions if you want to meet someone and learn about them on your own terms, rather than knowing that they’ve dated three of your best friends already,” he said. The small size of the student body also makes it difficult to change patterns of behavior and dating, Kelly said. It’s easy to gain a reputation for dating people of a certain gender or sexuality, which can put students in a box and work as a barrier to more complex or fluid identities, he explained. Ellyn Golden ’17 identifies as bisexual, but said she navigates Dartmouth nightlife as a heterosexual person. “I haven’t been able to tap into my love for women,” Golden said. “It’s hard for me to find what the queer scene would be or where that would be.” She’s not alone. Yeja Dunn ’16, who identifies as queer, describes the College as a “bubble of heteronormativity.” For Dunn, the queer dating scene is close to invisible, and the queer community itself is ver y splintered. “You have people that are really involved in the community, people who are queer who aren’t involved in the community — which is totally fine,” Dunn said. “But it’s definitely hard to find a queer community here that is more than just your friend group.” While it may not be the most visible or straightfor ward to navigate, most students agreed that a hookup scene certainly does exist in the queer community — it’s just not quite the same as the broader hookup culture on campus. “The difference between the [broader] Dartmouth hookup culture and the culture I’m used to is a hookup culture without the pong and without tails,” said Kar. “A lot of the major social venues that facilitate the hookup culture at Dartmouth don’t necessarily function as the same venues for queer students.” Instead, Kar said he has found a dating scene outside of the College in Hanover and surrounding areas, noting that there is an LGBT community in the Upper Valley that includes College faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, in addition to community members unaffiliated with the College. On top of that, organizations like Spectra and Dartmouth Alliance, which are aimed at creating social and pre-professional connections among the queer community, host events such as Q-Tails and IvyQ. Kar said events like these have allowed him to meet fellow queer students at the College
outside of the social spaces he described as facilitating interactions between heterosexual students. When it comes to expressing intimacy in public, the students I spoke to agreed that the College generally promotes inclusivity and acceptance of queer couples. “It’s always exciting to see same-sex couples holding hands, because it shows that at a school like Dartmouth, most students wouldn’t bat an eye at it,” Kar said. “I think normalcy of same-sex relationships is a positive thing, and it shows [the] progress we’ve made as a community.” Seeing queer couples express public intimacy can be refreshing, Dunn, who is dating someone, said. She added, however, that her level of comfort with expressing that intimacy depends on the space. She said she could not see herself making out with another girl in a fraternity basement, for example. “I don’t want to be that kind of public spectacle,” Dunn said. “I’m okay with my queerness, but I don’t want my queerness to be on display for other people.” Golden echoed similar concerns. Fraternities and sororities, she said, reinforce a culture of heteronormativity and a gender binar y. “I don’t think that I could have gone to a fraternity basement and expected to hook up with a woman,” she said. Her inhibitions, she said, come down to the expectations people generally have of what happens in a fraternity basement. For example, she said that most discourse around sexual assault assumes that the assault occurs between a man and a woman. Marriage tails, another staple of Greek life at Dartmouth, also generally involve a pairings of fraternities and sororities, she noted. At marriage tails, members of op-
posite houses often pair up and progress through the stages of matrimony with corresponding beverages — in some cases, they drink champagne at “marriage,” wine for their “honeymoon” and tequila shots at their “divorce.” Still, students expressed ambivalence about whether the College could or should be doing something to promote more inclusivity for queer students. “All any college can do is not have any prejudice against queer people,” Golden said. The College holds Pride week each spring, recently hosted students from various colleges for IvyQ for the first time and introduced the Triangle House this year, said Ihionu. The queer community, however, still remains disjointed, she said. Women’s and gender studies assistant professor Eng-Beng Lim, who teaches both “Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies” and “Radical Sexuality: Of Sexuality, Wildness and Fabulosity,” advises students to “think and do otherwise” in order to disrupt heteronormativity. “You should not be confined to given scripts about how you should be, [or] how you should act or behave. College is precisely the time for you to think freely and act openly,” Lim said. “Queer intimacy is precisely about that set of possibilities that’s unhinged from any kinds of normative, restrictive mandates.” Increased pride within the queer community and among allies would also help to facilitate a healthier and more inclusive campus climate, Kelley said. “I think that the greater pride we have in queer students being an integral part of the core fabric of Dartmouth College, the more students are going to want to come here, and be out, and be visible and be a part of the Dartmouth community,” Kelly said.
Courtesy of Daniel Calano
In a photo from our Mirror Exclusive Photo Essay, Daniel Calano ’15 and Austin Moore ’15 enjoy an embrace.
FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN
MIRROR //7
Boots and RallIES COLUMN
By Aaron Pellowski
COLUMN By Marian Lurio
In case you suffer from some form of amnesia, you are probably aware that Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Naturally, I would like to devote the entirety of this week’s column to love, lust, lies and betrayal. I’m ecstatic to report that Adnan Syed (of “Serial” fame/puller of my heartstrings) has been granted an appeal by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. All the way across the countr y in a California state prison, Charles Manson is undoubtedly singing the blues (a.k.a. Avril Lavigne’s 2004 smash hit “My Happy Ending”). Manson and his ex-fiancee broke up because she wanted to preserve his body and charge tourists to see it. Will the same fate plague my blossoming relationship with Adnan? There’s been another potential sociopath in the news recently — and he’s not even serving a life sentence in prison. Indeed, a certain NBC Nightly News anchor has taken the idiom “all is fair in love and war[zones]” a little too far. I am, of course, referring to the fact that Brian Williams’s 12-year-old story that he was the target of enemy fire on board an aircraft in the Middle East has been outed as straight-up false. Now many of Williams’s contentious statements are being questioned. Will Williams be able to restore his now-tarnished reputation as a credible news source/moral human being? It seems like for many industry insiders and outsiders, Williams’s liar status is about as shocking as each time an allegation surfaces re: John Travolta turning the tables on an unsuspecting masseur. After all of these allegations — and legal charges which are magically dropped by the plaintiffs — I would assume any masseur willing to offer his services to Travolta would now know what he is getting himself into. I wonder what the Church of Scientology — of which Travolta is a practitioner/true believer — has to say about that, but I’m a little afraid to confront the frankly terrifying religious organization. Speaking of Hollywood stars/nutjobs, I don’t want to waste too much of the limited word count of this column on garish events like the Super Bowl and the Grammys, but I do feel that each event deserves some commentary. I have something personal to share with the rest of you all. (I already told Phil about this one.) A recent heartbreak I suffered hit too close to home — and by home I am specifically referring to the City
of Brotherly Love. The New England Patriots’ fourth-quarter comeback against the Seattle Seahawks was all too reminiscent of the Patriots’ victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX 10 years ago. The birds (the football team and the pigeons that fly through Philadelphia’s airport terminals) have never really recovered from that loss. I didn’t watch the Grammys this past Sunday, but from what my news sources tell me, the awards show was a real bust. Kanye’s unwavering support of Beyoncé really does impress me, though. Don’t get me wrong — who doesn’t love Beyoncé? However, given Kanye’s relationship with Jay Z — that of mentee-mentor — it seems a bit strange. He’s a man obsessed! Dare I question the platonic nature of Ye and Bey’s relationship? As has been the case in so much of her career, Joan Rivers was snubbed posthumously by the Grammys. The “academy” did not include the amazing comedienne (or is it now comedian like actress has become actor?) in its “In Memoriam” tribute. Rivers even won a Grammy this year for best spoken word album, yet Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich — who purports to have worked with Rivers — has attributed this omission to putting a time limit on the deaths that are or are not included in this tribute. I ain’t buying it. I know people are —in my opinion, irrationally — obsessed with Robin Williams (not Brian!) and saddened by his death (if the number of Facebook posts about him on my newsfeed after his death is any indication), but he died nearly a month before the alsobeloved Rivers. Therefore, I have just one thing to say to so-called “producer” Ken Ehrlich — eff you! Another source of heartbreak in the news is Bruce Jenner’s car crash. What does it say about the status and fate of the human race that only a tragic event of this magnitude can (temporarily) eclipse the media buzz surrounding the alleged male-to-female transition, which has been discussed by nearly everyone except for Jenner. Whether it means stalking a convicted felon (or two) or having a party for one, enjoy your Valentine’s Day, readers of this column! If you are interested in sending me flowers or perhaps an anonymous love letter (adorned with a lock of my own hair? Too arduous to attain given the “difficult” nature of my frizzy mop), please contact me via blitz or Yik Yak so I can provide you with a delivery location.
“Are you going to FoCo?” This question, the most phatic bit of verbiage, is laden with history and innuendo that someone outside of Dartmouth’s cultural cell could never understand and about which someone within forgets to think. We learn our culture so incrementally that we cannot see ourselves changing. No sudden moment of skin-shedding metamorphosis takes place when we hop off the Coach and into the new world of college. Instead, we become Men and Women of Dartmouth the way a scab grows — invisibly. It becomes a fact of our existence, beyond question. So no one is particularly surprised by the assertion that, technically speaking, FoCo doesn’t exist. The building between Psi U and South Mass is the Class of 1953 Commons, named for a bunch of alumni who donated money for the cafeteria’s renovation and then had their names inscribed on the entering wall. Somewhat tragically for the philanthropists, though, students never took to the new name. Not only because it’s a bit of mouthful (enjoy the pun, Mom), but because, in some odd way, accepting that the power to name and rename is in the hand that holds the purse-strings would amount to some kind of concession to oppression. “No!” we shout in apostrophe at the face of an abstract, unknown authority, “You can’t make us call it anything other than FoCo!” This is the indignant spirit of conservatism, which can be a beautiful thing for preserving lifestyle and tradition. On its own, wellmeasured obstinence has a sheen of virtue and freedom to it. The funny thing, though, is that all present students, from the ’15s down to the ’18s, matriculated after the change took place. We are mounting a daily linguistic defense of an experience and an era that was never properly our own. That’s just what it is to be part of a culture that transcends the temporal and terrestrial, I suppose. There is more to be said about FoCo that is left unsaid. FoCo, in a way that does not quite hold for Collis or the Hop, is a merciless social panopticon. Once you swipe in, you enter a battle royale of paying and attracting attention. You can eat alone in a corner upstairs if you want to duck out of the game, but woe betide if you suffer the terrific ignominy of being seen eating alone downstairs. You might as well wear a sandwich board that reads, “I am a born loser, and I am socially illiterate. I have had multiple terms to learn the rules of Dartmouth and make friends, but I have still failed on all counts. Every pitying look cast upon me by chattering, passing packs of my peers adds to a symphony of stings and aches that plays upon my soul from dawn to dusk.” By the time you’re a senior — hopefully earlier — you’ll know that it matters where you sit in FoCo. The “dark side” is reserved for the chill and A-Side, the athletes and
frat stars, the people who win pride for our institution. The “light side,” of course, is for the dregs: the NARPs, the people who play board games, the bowl-cut-and-sweatpants type. The dark side is Harvard and the light side is high school. Where do you belong? It is a sad fact that students self-divert in this way. I’m sad to report it, but at least I can say I don’t make the rules. Another thing: FoCo cookies. When I was a freshman, I was carousing in McLaughlin when I spotted out the window a girl being collected by an EMS truck. Apparently she had been Good Sammed for uncontrollable vomiting. Somewhat incoherently, she protested that she was not drunk at all. I found out later that after she’d been booked, she did a breathalyzer and blew a 0.0. Turns out, she had eaten one too many FoCo cookies and gotten food poisoning. I find the term “cookie” a bit of a misnomer in the first place, since I suspect that no cooking takes place in the process of bringing these soupy confections into existence. It speaks volumes that last evening my dining partner selected a spoon as her preferred utensil for eating her pair of chocolate chip cookies. Why don’t we all just admit that FoCo cookies cannot be classified among the solid-state elements of the world? Why pretend? Stride into FoCo, grab a cup and declare to the baker, “Pour me a tall glass of FoCo cookie, please! Where are the straws?” Besides being the chemical oddities that they are, FoCo cookies just aren’t that good. Yet that has not stopped them from becoming an institution within an institution within an institution that people worship as iconic of “The Dartmouth Experience.” What The Dartmouth Experience is, anyway, is strikingly nebulous, since anyone should know that no two people could have remotely similar experiences, let alone the forty thousand students of the past decade. It seems that The Dartmouth Experience, what is common to us all, is the belief that The Dartmouth Experience exists, and the slow, scab-like absorption of its hallmark articulation. We will eat FoCo cookies no matter how liquid they become. We will eat at Lou’s no matter how spectacularly unspecial the food and atmosphere are. We’ll wear flair like a carnival of imbeciles such that former versions of ourselves would look on us and shudder. Pong, the bonfire, the Dartmouth Seven — these are good traditions. But as we construct and re-construct our collective identity like the ship of Theseus, sailing against the current times, borne back ceaselessly into the past, it is never the content of the traditions whose failure would disrupt our voyage — they are done for the sake of sustaining a world. When at Dartmouth, we do as Dartmouth students do. When we stop, Dartmouth will sink and disappear into the jaws of Lethe.
8// MIRROR
William Paja/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
We asked you to respond anonymously to questions about your love life. Here’s what you said. SPOTLIGHT
B y you
If you could send an anonymous romancerelated message to anyone at Dartmouth, what would you say? You are what I think about in that place between asleep and awake. You make me smile. No. I’ve always loved you — knowing that you don’t reciprocate doesn’t change how I feel about you, and I’m sorry to have caused you so much worry and concern. Yes, it was your pong skills that wooed me. Don’t get your hopes up. Hi, let’s get some KAF, and watch a movie and not have sex ’til we’re actually comfortable with each other and know we both like each other. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t let a relationship define your Dartmouth experience. I wish I had met you sooner. I love you! Hey, sup? Would you take me out somewhere I could wear a beautiful dress, make me laugh, walk me to me doorstep, kiss me goodnight and call me in the morning? Don’t be a rapist please. I like your septum. We should do this more often. You have a beautiful smile. Why can’t you see you belong with me? I still haven’t done any of the Dartmouth Seven... can you help me out with that? NOT WORTH THE PAIN. Do you. I kinda dig you. Do not take me out to dinner just because you think it’s the “right” thing to do. I’ve got a blank space baby, and I’ll write your name. We make more sense together than we do apart. So let’s take a chance on us. Roommate, please find another place to have (really loud) sex other than our dorm room. Come back from your LSA already. I miss you. ;) Even though we’ve never dated, I think we’d be a great married couple. I feel incredibly cheesy writing you a love message, but honestly being in love with you has been one of my greatest accomplishments at Dartmouth. Remember that there is far more to life than romance. Don’t let romance, or the lack of it, dominate your life. If you like someone, go for it in the right way — do things right, and don’t let your friends influence you not to. I would tell them that we’re all imperfect creatures looking for someone to be there for us. Pong tonight? We would be so great together. Why don’t you notice me? Don’t text me drunk telling me to come over — ask me on a real date. We only just started spending more time together, but in you I finally see I person that I don’t have to justify a relationship with. It’s just natural — I’m not worried or rushed, but I’m confident that we could be something. If you’re tired of being single, ask them to lunch, not pong! When I’m with you it feels natural and good, and these are the first real feelings I’ve had since high school. I loved you once. Love come in so many forms, each as beautiful
as the rest. Love for a sister, a friend or a parent is no weaker than that for a significant other. Casual hookups are meaningless and are definitely not romantic — try actual dating and chivalry instead for a meaningful relationship Don’t let what you think the dominant hookup culture is define what your love life is for you. Take risks! I hope you someday realize what is truly important in life. Semi? I want to make this work! What makes someone a “relationship person?” Let’s just call it a relationship already. Don’t be scared to initiate hanging out sober. You are beautiful, but I’m very happy with the one I’m with. What are we?? I can’t read you at all!! Are you interested or not?!?! Why won’t you talk to me? Thank you for constantly pushing me to grow and for remaining my best friend in the midst of our romance. I wish you knew. Bring flitzing back. You complete me. Love doesn’t last. Make the most of it while it’s there. Lunch? I think you’re swell, and I’m really glad I met you. Go along with the flow but don’t be averse to a chance at a relationship! You’re so cute. Let’s go on an actual date. I’m avoiding you at FoCo. People are fragile creatures. Embrace them, and don’t play with their emotions. Need one for pong. I’m happy we both want to wait until marriage. To a guy who graduated, I hope you’re a better person in the real world. Communicate. More than anything, I just wanted to know what you were thinking. I wish I could tell you that I liked you, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship. Love is everywhere. Live every night like it’s last chance dance. Are you thoughts as hot as your body? I wish you would tell me you loved me when you were sober. I hope there’s a chance for us some day. If only you were taller. Are you a beaver, cause DAAAAM. Somebody loves you. I wonder how things would have turned out. You’re an amazing human being, but you have a lot of growing up to do. Hope you get there sooner rather than later. Are you ready? I think about texting you a lot when I’m drunk. I don’t know what that means. We’d have really attractive kids — do me? I never knew what “out of my league” meant until I met you. I hate you for wasting so much of my time *Kissy face emoji* The reason we lost touch was that being around you and knowing you weren’t ready was too hard to bear. You left your Facebook logged in on my computer after we broke up. I felt bad for reading your messages until I saw what you said about me. I’ve never been more hurt by someone in my life. It’s good that you’re different from everyone else.
If you could describe your romantic life at Dartmouth in one sentence, what would it be? A progression of sexual discoveries and positive experiences. I’m still figuring out who I am. Flaming one moment, questioning it and myself the next. Impressively feminist girls with surprisingly unfeminist sexual preferences Hell is other people. Frustrating. I want to have different experiences while I still can. I’m happy to be taken, and that includes being taken out of the game. I shouldn’t have gotten so emotionally invested when I wasn’t strong enough to care for myself. It has been interesting and unexpected. You only have time for hookups. In a steady relationship with school. Barren. Hookup culture and low standards of taking a human interest in one another’s lives. Random, shambly hookups. Always learning, meeting new people and moving onward and upward. I’m in a long-distance relationship. It’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times. Writing 5. Serial non-emotional sexual interaction. Tragic, until suddenly it wasn’t. Dismal. One-night stands, but doesn’t have to be only one night. Unfulfilling. I’m in love with the boy I want to marry. Drunk. Should be better. I wish I had a girlfriend — I’m down for something long-term. Always changing. I’ve found someone I plan to be in a committed, exclusive relationship with long-term. I have a casual hookup that I haven’t defined, but I’m also hooking up with my best friend — so it’s complicated. Unreciprocated. There is no time for a romantic life. Rocky road. Casual. Rougher than sandpaper. A series of failed attempts to take strong personal connections further. Found my life partner. Came to campus trying to recover from a broken heart and learned quickly that boys are not good band-aids. The Dartmouth X is real. Meet boy, hook up, become bored, repeat. It’s difficult to meet people. Romance is not what I’m focused on right now. I’d rather work on my own personal and intellectual growth for now. In a long-distance relationship, but it’s absolutely worth it. Messy, sloppy, often drunken, always fun, usually casual, often guided by wanting cuddles. I’m not mature enough for a real relationship, and I know it. Amazing romantic relationship without sex. Losing out to aggressive predators. After a series of unfulfilling random hookups, I’m now happy to be in a meaningful relationship. Hopeful.
Complicated but steady. My first serious relationship, first sexual experience, first time someone said he loved me. I’ll hookup with you if I find you really, really, REALLY attractive, but your personality usually ruins it. Romance is pretty much dead at Dartmouth. In a long-term relationship that’s made it through a crazy D-Plan. There was love, then single life and then, swug life. No B.S. yet, but a Ph.D. in third-wheeling. Same people over and over — I want something new. My high school sweeheart followed me to Dartmouth, and I couldn’t be happier. Up and down, currently boring as hell and uncomprehensive of how everyone else seems to have an interesting one. Romance has fallen by the wayside, leaving me unsatisfied. I never close. Fun. Three minutes. Trying to find someone who is thoughtful and wants to snuggle but failing. Rediscovering first love. My romantic life has been a whirlwind of luck, fun, surprise and happiness. Too many casual hookups, not enough meaningful relationships. A series of unfortunate events. Dating — a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again. The lone pine. I found love in a hopeless place! This is a disaster. It’s been a learning process. Out to experience as much as I can. Anyone will do... except you, or you, or you or any of you. There doesn’t seem to be time or space for real romance here. I just haven’t met you yet. I guess it was fun and casual at first, but I unexpectedly found someone I really connected with and fell in love. “Lovers... that word bums me out unless it’s between meat and pizza.” It’s been a learning experience. Genuine. Random hookups have been disappointing, but when I’ve taken the time and been okay with the vulnerability required for a relationship, I have been incredibly fulfilled and happy. A series of unfortunate events until Tinder on an off-term. Erratic, stressful, fun. Rather like hiking a mountain — the view gets better and better. I’m romantically attached to my problem sets. The Sahara Desert. Single and celibate but not for lack of trying. Dating as a gay undergrad here is impossible. I’m dating chemistry. “Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.” I’m too horny, and there are too many willing gay guys around. Messing around with your best friend is a no-no. Those I’ve liked don’t reciprocate. Those who liked me I didn’t reciprocate. No wonder we have a problem with binge drinking. Stress-driven.