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Dating urban legends come to life

“People at Wake Forest just don’t date.” Wow. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say that (and another 50 cents for every time I say it while crying to my mom on the phone), I would have enough money to make shirts to give away in freshman dorms that say, “Sex Kills … I came to Wake so I could live FOREVER.” I bet I would even have enough money left over to pay off my parking tickets.

But, no matter how many times you say, “People at Wake just don’t date,” and no matter how many times your friends all nod effusively in agreement, the fact is … somehow, despite the fact that nobody actually goes on dates, people still end up with boyfriends and girlfriends.

Where do these significant others come from? They appear as if from nowhere! There has to be an explanation, right? By all accounts there should be some discernible process by which one can end up in the rarest of realms: the committed relationship.

But isn’t that process called dating? But people here don’t date! (Whoa, I suddenly had flashbacks of the smartass in my Philosophy 111 class who liked to engage the professor in meaningless circular arguments).

We might as well forget looking for logical explanations and hard evidence as to how people end up coupled on a campus that isn’t coupling-conducive. Instead, we will rely on legend and lore to give us mental peace.

We must assume that everyone on this campus that is in a real, honest- to-goodness relationship is merely the product of a Dating Urban Legend come true.

Dating Urban Legend No. 1: The boy/girlfriend from high school. Yeah that’s right. Legend has it that there are people out there who did not break up with their high school hunnie before the end of October of freshman year.

There are people out there who are actually still dating the same person who took them to prom. There are people out there who are still dating the first person that groped them in the family room after their parents went to bed.

Call them crazy, call them scaredy-cats who need security blankets, but at least they have someone to call “sweetie.”

Dating Urban Legend No. 2: The frat party hookup that turned into something more. Miss Manners always said that engaging in physical contact with gentlemen while under the influence of mentally destructive substances was not any way to find a husband.

Apparently it is a way to find yourself a boyfriend.

Everybody knows at least one somebody that started out in a hook-up-only situation and ended up in a developed and meaningful relationship.

Now maybe these relationships are just the result of pure laziness on behalf of the people involved. They found someone who was willing to make out with them on repeated occasions, despite the fact that they a) taste like a revolting combo of Kool-Aid, beer and Doritos; b) passed out while … ahem … “receiving pleasures;” or c) may or may not have been blacked out on the evening that will now become their “anniversary.”

But maybe these people aren’t lazy, maybe they’re just lucky. They are the mythical and magical few that destiny decided to bring together in the middle of a sweaty dance floor.

This legend of frattylicious fate is the small burning ember of hope inside every sorority girl who has ever owned a “lucky black shirt” that she knows will one day be crumpled on the floor of Mr. Right.

Dating Urban Legend No. 3: Found Love Overseas. “He was in the Boston program too!” “She was actually studying in Prague but she came to Florence to visit a girl whose host family was right down street from mine.” “Our first date was a ride down the Seine.”

We all know that by the time you hit your junior year at Wake Forest, you are so stressed out, fed up and frustrated that something has got to give. So you go abroad.

Here you will find people outside the Wake bubble that you never even knew existed.

You may even find people that come from the same Wake bubble, but who just suddenly look far more attractive to you with the Venetian sun setting behind them. You might even snag yourself a sweetheart with a sexy accent. Whatever the case, you come back to the states with a stamp in your passport, new look on life and a significant other.

Is it the enchanted European air that makes these romances possible? Is your buddy just completely making up the whole story about falling in love with a Swedish blond on the Metro? Do we all have to go trans-Atlantic to get a little action? What do you have to do to make yourself available to be touched by the finger of fate and the Legends of Love?

I wish I knew the answer to these questions. But even to Brandy Jones, these stories remain unfathomable romantic myths. Perhaps some of you, dear readers, have encountered the Loch Ness Monster of Legendary Love. Perhaps one of you has witnessed the Green Flash of fate or found the Lost City of Atlantis’ Attraction. If you have, please, share your story with me … I long to know the method behind the magic.

 

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Wake Forest University Student Newspaper, NC