"So, um, did you happen to go to Amherst?"As awesome as it is to write about how I make a spectacle of myself on a pretty much daily basis, I’ve decided to postpone my weekly awkward column in favor of writing about something less, well, awkward. (Stay tuned for a thrilling odyssey about my fear of pigeons, which will be posted in a few days time though. Please, contain your excitement.) The topic of this post is something I haven’t thought about in a while – having conveniently and inadvertently circumvented the issue via Zog Sports -- but it recently was brought to my attention by a friend and I felt it could be interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter.
Well, to get to the point, dating in the city can be hard. Really, really hard. And not just in New York. I think this applies to all cities, everywhere. While New York can be particularly isolating, and there is a certain feeling that all people, everywhere, think they’re cooler/smarter/richer/better than you, it’s ultimately not the male-female (or male-male, or female-female, or post-op transsexual-confused New Jersey businessman) interaction that’s all that difficult. I believe it’s the transition from college dating to real world dating that initially presents the challenge. In the real world, getting drunk and rubbing up against someone at a keg party will likely result in arrest, as opposed to a hook up. This makes it necessary to figure out an alternate way to crack the dating code.
In college, you usually don’t need an introduction to the person you have your eye on. Odds are, you know their name, age, hometown, class schedule and about fifteen different things you have in common just from your day-to-day interactions and the fact that you spend all your waking hours within a ½ mile radius of one another. And if, against all odds, you don’t know anything about this person because, say, they live under a rock, you can easily find someone who can vouch for your target. Maybe they’re in the Star Wars club together or both play on the lacrosse team. Regardless, if you’re wary of a person’s credentials or want to know more about their interests you can usually find a mutual friend who will either vouch for them or corroborate any rumors you’ve heard about their rampant drug use and/or alleged third nipple.
In your post college years, your options can become surprisingly more limited. One hot summer night, many years ago, my friends and I sat around debating the challenge of dating in the city and they eventually drew two conclusions. My more conservative lady friend insisted you should really only limit yourself to the wading pool of your acquaintances and their subsequent friend circles. Her logic was that in a big, often dangerous city, you really need a third party voucher for anyone you want to date. A friend of a friend is a safe bet because you have someone to tell you if they’ve ever been incarcerated or have a secret stripper fetish. You also have the added bonus of an introduction, ready-made small talk and someone to turn to when you think your date lied about having to reschedule due to a fantasy baseball draft. Of course, the challenge here is: What happens when you run out of friends of friends? Isn’t the whole point of living in a big city full of attractive people to get out there and sample the diverse and exotic fare, instead of spinning your wheels with people who aren’t all that different from those you went to college with?
Well, you can also dive into a veritable ocean of eligible men and women that exists within city limits if you’re willing to meet people in bars – but this method isn’t without its own risk. Millions of options could lead to tons of interesting and diverse dates. It could also mean dedicating precious time to get to know someone you met under the influence of alcohol and could have spent the last 25 years as a nomadic goat herder, for all you know. Sure, it can be exciting, but it can also be a grand waste of time. My more adventurous, risk taking friend, calls her approach to dating the Amherst Theory. She believes that by striking up a basic conversation with someone, you can infer a lot of things about what kind of person they are and decide if it’s worth pursuing - essentially many of the same things you could find out through a mutual friend. For instance, if you’re into preppy, NESCAC types, by chatting up a guy and finding out he went to Amherst will help him pass some initial hurdles – he's probably smart, the victim of a liberal arts education, potentially athletic, unlikely to be a serial killer… dare I say a little fratty? But really, how much can you infer beyond what’s totally superficial? And even if things do work out, for the rest of your life do you have to tell people you met in a booze-fueled frenzy at a bar every time you’re asked?
I guess the bottom line is, since these are obvious generalizations, it’s not like there aren’t going to be people that defy both of these theories. It’s just that they provide additional hurdles to what can already be a rejection laden and emotionally complicated process. Friend #1 took the safe route and is in a happy relationship with a friend of a friend of a friend with whom she went to Jewish summer camp. Friend #2 happened to randomly meet her boyfriend at a bar, where they talked for hours and she found out he was a Harvard Law/UVA grad with a good job and love of Bluegrass. (Personally, I’m convinced she entered into this relationship with the express goal of proving her theory right.) But while things worked out for her, you still have to keep in mind more extreme stories like that of the alleged Craigslist killer, which warns against befriending someone just because they look good on paper or make a great first impression.
So, ultimately I must ask you, dear readers: Is the best course of action to just let things happen naturally? Is it to just keep your options open and your guard up, and hope for the best? Do you tap into the hidden treasure chest known as coed, recreational sports and accidentally come out with a relationship? I guess there aren’t any absolute laws and if there are, I certainly don’t know them. Please, help us form a more scientific theory by leaving any successes/failures/funny stories in the comments.
