Dating at Drexel University. Please read that again just so someone can see those two words in the same sentence. If you are reading this article, then you are probably attending West Philadelphia’s premier, career-spinning, pinwheel of an institution: Drexel University. The main goal of this university has been to help students pursue ambitious ventures in any setting where you can exploit or explore. But does this impatient ambition extend all the way around the block and back to the personal goodies?
A general sentiment heard around the student body is that dating at Drexel is as pointless as NFT’s. But why does dating at Drexel University feel so inaccessible to so many? This great white whale really looks an awful lot like a golden dragon statue. College has been sold for and by many as the turbulent seas that forge lifelong romance. Couples change their posture when explaining their 20’s and how it made them into the union you see in front of you. I have heard far too many married couples drone on about their cute-meet story in a university club, a coffee shop or a major-required course. How do I picture this romantic delusion of grandeur in a post-pandemic college campus? How can I worry about kissing someone’s face when I just saw their chin for the first time again after two years?
Seriously, if you made a romantic relationship over zoom classes at Drexel University during the two years, I would like you to contact me after reading this. I need to know if someone in ten years at Drexel is going to be telling me about how they were both on mute in a breakout room but then talked at the same time and then got married. I want to believe there is at least one special couple out there like that. More than that, I want to figure out how realistic that fantasy of college romance truly is for the typical peer trying their best to connect. Dating in college looks very different compared to what it used to.
Some would say that dating today is better in the digital age, it has prioritized pleasure and compatibility. Others would call it a heartless game of Russian Roulette where all the blanks are bullets. Where does the greater hookup culture fit in at Drexel? Do we even witness real connection in this day in age of dating?
When I think about dating in college, personally, I think of all my friends. Am I biased because I love my friends? Or do you really even care about bias in journalism anymore? You’re reading the opinion section and that was your choice. Most of my friends are either straight women or queer individuals navigating the “dating scene” at Drexel University. So when I have the conversation about sex and dating with others that feel comfortable sharing their stories, they tend to be about the men on the market. The bachelors, the “masc-attack,” the hunters, the few, the many, the bold, the brash, the immature, the men-children of our campus. If you feel you can identify with any of the previous terms please pay close attention to this next phrase. Take the time to figure out what you want. Just because we are on a quarter system does not mean you can push your emotional processing time to a single week of break the entire year.
Finding out what style of connection and support you want from others in the platonic, romantic, and sexual sense is an individualized journey. Consider how intimacy makes you feel and if you need to feel it at all. What intimacies have made you feel the best in the past? Is that a touchy subject? We must have heard the word “spectrum” as many times as we’ve heard the word crypto, yet both seem so mystical to so many. College student: you don’t owe anyone an explanation as to your path with dating or sex during this time in your life. Not your family, friends, future partners, professors (just kidding), or strangers.
What does it mean to be an active dating member of the dating scene on Drexel’s campus? Especially when the scene feels more like a few lines from a filler episode on season three of whatever dating show Netflix just forced upon the general audience. Has ambition made you wait? Well wait no longer! It is time for ambition to take a back seat for you to get a text-back. What is it going to take for our student body to start connecting with their bodies?
Feeling “Drexual” still?
Do you have dating or sex questions? Well you are in luck because a team of specialty romance therapists have been organized by The Triangle and are ready to take on your deepest desires. Well, our team isn’t exactly trained therapists, but they are willing to help! If you care about the opinion of total strangers please submit your question to The Triangle at [email protected]g or message us on twitter at @DrexelTriangle.