We don't need a return to courtly love, but we also don't need to think of dates as abnormal. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
One of my friends recently told me that it would be weird for a guy to go up to a girl in the library, introduce himself and ask if she would be interested in getting a cup of coffee. Yet ironically, it is perceived as less strange to get heavily intoxicated, head to Cro and start grinding with a girl. Though this makes very little sense, it is reflective of a negative trend surfacing within our generation: technological innovations and alcohol are inhibiting our ability to interact with the opposite sex.
If you take issue with this statement, when was the last time that you hooked up with someone sober? When was the last time you had a conversation with someone you were interested in about something substantive? I am not discouraging people from drinking and enjoying themselves, but we need to add conversation back into the equation of attraction; talking has, in large part, died out with our over-consumption of alcohol and gratuitous fiddling with our gadgets.
Technology has proven to be just as big a crutch as alcohol, further hindering our ability to socialize with the opposite sex. Text messaging and online dating enable us to avoid face-to-face interactions while still halfheartedly attempting to communicate, which is only contributing to our social decline as a generation. Now, almost every time you turn on the television, there is a commercial for eHarmony or some other online dating service, advertising that twenty percent of new marriages start as online relationships. The day may come when you are single, twenty-seven and wondering if you should open a Match.com tab on your browser. The answer should probably be no, but the habits we form in college will probably be a strong indicator of what our dating prospects will be in the future.
We thus must resurrect the social acceptability of the coffee date. The basic form of this simple interaction is how dating has worked for centuries, prior to the introduction of technological innovations. If it worked then, it can work now.
This advice is not only applicable to the realm of dating but, as many rising juniors will soon discover, it is relevant to interviewing techniques. We have grown so accustomed to avoiding direct interactions with people that we feel uncomfortable going to an interview and having an informal discussion; a skill obviously applicable to dating. A date is essentially an interview: in both cases, both parties are looking for compatability. There is something to lose and something to gain while on a date, which is no different from a job interview. So evidently, there is real world applicability tied to the revival of social interactions uninhibited by alcohol or technology.
We need to reverse the status quo; technology and alcohol should no longer be the crux of our social exchanges. We come to college not only for academic advancement, but also to grow as individuals. We are hindering the maturation process by negating the importance of sober social interactions, free from alcoholic and technological interference. I therefore implore everyone to reconsider the social norms by which we are abiding and reinstitute the coffee date as acceptable, normal social practice. •
