In a normal game of Things Adults Always Ask, the questions generally stay the same:
Round one: “So what are you studying?”
Round two: “Isn’t that a dying field?"
And round three: “But you’re seeing someone special, right?"
The college dating scene is frustrating enough to explain without having to censor it for the above-40 crowd. As soon as you give them an inch, they will bash your Tinder profile, psychoanalyze youth hookup culture and solicit their available son’s phone number, head shot and résumé between breaths.
But before they can recite his first digit, assure them you really do not have a problem with college dating.
“How is that?” they ask (round four).
Well, it is certainly not because of the Tinder matches nor Freudian hookup theories nor even the prospect of their single son. Frankly, you can explain, it is because of the clothes.
While in the real world getting dressed for the day starts at around 8 a.m., college runs its own time zone and dress code, both which start 12 hours late.
For this reason, daylight does not necessarily mean morning, so we schlep to our classes with pajama-clad uniforms and Starbucks-pumped bloodstreams. A campus of poorly dressed sleepwalkers, we somehow make it through the time warp.
But as the sun goes down and the world goes to bed, our alarm goes off at 10 p.m. and our day has finally begun. We dig through our closets, rummage through our drawers and get ready in an assortment of daring cutouts, crop tops, heels and hems.
More than 12 hours too late, but right on time to us, who will spend the next few hours meeting and mingling our way through college nightlife.
While unconventional, the system makes sense for balancing both our academic and social lives.
Of course, during the daytime our hibernating style tells the world to come back later. Between our course loads, studies and commitments, we just do not have time to engage with dating’s demands.
But come nightfall, we send a different message. Throw on a dress, switch the cab’s light on and make it known – we are available.
Our generation’s dating culture often gets bashed for its mindless swipes and meaningless hookups, but here we prove to be different.
In fact, between juggling time difference, subliminal messaging and dual calendars, college dating could be viewed as one of the most dogmatic forms of modern social interactions. Anything but mindless, we have systematically manufactured the system to our own liking, much to those adults' chagrin.
Honestly, it is not even about the clothes but about the style in which we have chosen them. College dating and dressing may be both centuries-old institutions, but we have taken them on as new ideas and rebuilt them in our own terms.
No, you may not be seeing anyone right now, but how many generations can say they have done that?
