oceantheorem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oceantheorem) wrote2006-11-05 11:43 am
oceantheorem) wrote2006-11-05 11:43 am
Twenty-Something Love
So, I was wandering around on the internet yesterday afternoon instead of working on my NSF grant. There's a girl at Columbia University, a junior, who writes a sex column for the Columbia daily newspaper. I found a link to her site through IvyGate, which is a blog dedicated to the happenings of the Ivies.
IvyGate
Miriam Datskovsky
Anyway, so one of the links on the side of Miriam's page leads to an interview she participated in with NPR, about love among 20-somethings. It was a fascinating discussion. One of the main points touched upon was that "men are the new women," meaning that, these days, women ask out men, and men are the coy ones who get to choose. It was also suggested that women are becoming more promiscuous while men are beginning to hold back, possibly because they (the men) want more romance and possibly because they think they can do better. Sixty percent of college students are female, which translates to a huge discrepancy once we graduate and move to urban areas. Men have all these choices now, and women don't. They also discussed how, because of this phenomenon, and maybe also partly because of TV, women feel like they have to sleep with a guy straight off, or someone else will. It's a matter of competition. Fascinating. And it's a horrible thing, but I definitely think it's true. If I look around, at myself and at UCSC and Yale, that's what I see. Men are holding back, and women are throwing themselves at them, desperate to hang on to one but largely unable to do so.
Anyway.
As long as we're posting links, I'm getting my sister a magnetic dachshund for Christmas.
What are you getting your mom for Christmas?
IvyGate
Miriam Datskovsky
Anyway, so one of the links on the side of Miriam's page leads to an interview she participated in with NPR, about love among 20-somethings. It was a fascinating discussion. One of the main points touched upon was that "men are the new women," meaning that, these days, women ask out men, and men are the coy ones who get to choose. It was also suggested that women are becoming more promiscuous while men are beginning to hold back, possibly because they (the men) want more romance and possibly because they think they can do better. Sixty percent of college students are female, which translates to a huge discrepancy once we graduate and move to urban areas. Men have all these choices now, and women don't. They also discussed how, because of this phenomenon, and maybe also partly because of TV, women feel like they have to sleep with a guy straight off, or someone else will. It's a matter of competition. Fascinating. And it's a horrible thing, but I definitely think it's true. If I look around, at myself and at UCSC and Yale, that's what I see. Men are holding back, and women are throwing themselves at them, desperate to hang on to one but largely unable to do so.
Anyway.
As long as we're posting links, I'm getting my sister a magnetic dachshund for Christmas.
What are you getting your mom for Christmas?
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I got your note, nam.
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Tit lou emjol dve mode? An I geddimg a mode?
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Is letter masculine?
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Reminds me of what's her face, and her sometimes you should go back for your purse, and sometimes you shouldn't, but she didn't know how to distinguish.
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Though, I will make one brief point and one brief observation.
The first. Men have been changing, not entirely for the better. Unfortunately, my views on this are too politically charged to make any kind of public statement on. Either side of the discussion would be entirely offended by anything that I could possibly say (I'd have to say that you and I experienced this first hand with one of our friends here on our second day of orientation), and I'd like to find a faculty position someday. You won't catch me opening that Pandora's box.
The second. I've asked out pretty much every girl I've ever dated. Though, some have made particularly bold gestures in order to capture my attention.
On the other hand, I've found that flirtation is largely lost on certain crowds. At Cornell, for instance (and, apparently this is popular elsewhere), it's considered a normal flirtation for a girl to stand quite closely to a guy so her breasts are pressing into him, or to do this "accidentally". When I first went to Cornell, I thought that this beautiful, wonderfully desirable female was the clumsiest person that I had ever met because she kept on bumping her breasts into me. I only later found out that this was some kind of flirtation.
Also, many people have commented before that dating has largely been lost on our generation. Perhaps it is the case that what the Miriam is looking for something that just isn't there anymore. I've only known a handful of people who date in the classical sense, most hook up with someone in their social circle and begin dating after. I'd say that only a minority of my relationships have begun otherwise, with the only explicit "dating" having occurred in cases where I did not know the girl well but wanted to ask her out anyway.
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I'm not sure which friend you're referring to...
The program didn't really address flirtation, per se. It probably is changing (and from what it sounds like, it's changing in an alarming way). But I think the main point was that the entire idea of relationships is different these days, and the role of men and women in them is also different.
Miriam suggested in the interview that there are two types of relationships now--the casual hookup, and the instant serious marriage-like relationship. I completely agree, because I've experienced both first-hand, and I don't think the dichotomy used to be so strong. But I think people have always dated mostly within their own social circles. The difference is that they didn't used to "hook up" first and begin dating afterwards.
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It's also interesting about the social circles bit. I tend to avoid dating inside my own social circle, because I don't want to create drama... the hookup, to me, in light of this, is the realization of the inevitable. IE, two parties (at least in my case, myself and a female acquaintance) view the hookup as inevitable and act on it because of this. Barring this, I generally avoid it, mostly because of prior experience. The girl that I dated freshman year of college was very close to a number of my friends from high school. When we broke up, they sided with her in the breakup, ending many of my high school friendships. By dating outside of my immediate social circle, I'm able to avoid this to an extent. Few people question me about my breakup with the girl I first dated after college, aside to say, "
I should probably be more careful in the way that I phrase things. In the GP, I merely meant that almost any point of view that I could possibly take will be indefensible from somebody's angle, and therefore offensive, and, as such, I prefer to avoid that issue altogether, despite having a fairly developed view on the topic. We can share over beers sometime, given that we're in a crowd of people that we both know fairly well. I'd rather not start off on the wrong foot with anyone by jumping into such an inherently politically charged issue.
Interesting
I think there are some interesting issues in play. However, I'm not sure they are as significant as the radio program would necessarily make them. I think some issues definitely are, but some aren't. I know I'm being vague as hell here...but I gotta get back to my cleaning. I plan on writing my next LJ entry on this very subject because I do find it facinating. Keep an eye out for it.
Thanks for the link! If you find any more interesting radio programs, please post them!
-E
Re: Interesting
Back to the homework, I fear... I hope your cleaning is going better than my studying!
Quotes on sex
http://moronland.net/moronia/moron/953/