Oct. 19,2000
• Opinion •
Page 7
College dating laws: Love, lampshades and roommates
So you have been at college for
a month and a half. You are into the
swing of things. You have made
friends, you have exhausted all of the
food options in McEwen and Harden
combined. You write papers in the
wee hours of the morning. You go out
and chances are you have taken the
time to notice members of the oppo
site sex.
At a school where the number
of girls more then doubles the num
ber of guys, it is easy to see why there
might not be too much of a dating
scene. But for those who have suc
ceeded in winning the heart of one of
your fellow students, you know that
sometimes college dating isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be.
Read “Dear Abby” sometime
and take a look at how many of the
little sappy “how we met” stories
occurred in college. College is hard
enough without having to deal with
impressing members of the opposite
sex.
Relationships here differ be
tween people, generally though, there
are basically four dating situations
you can be involved in: long-distance
love, random hook-ups, dating the
guy/girl down the hall and the avoidant
perspective, where you would like
nothing better than to completely
avoid the opposite sex all together
in favor of lab time or whatever.
Which ones work and which ones
fail miserably? Let’s see...
First, the long-distance idea.
It’s IhOOp.m, August 24 and you
go out on your driveway gazing
into the eyes of the “love of your
life” whom you have chosen to
stay faithful to through
college.
You try to repress mental
images of scenes from the movie
“Roadtrip” as you tell them you
will never, ever under any cir
cumstance even remotely consider
breaking up with them because
you have, indeed, found true love.
You wave a tearful goodbye
and promise to call as soon as you
hook up your phone. And then
you actually get to school, and it
dawns on you, “there are other
guys/girls here and, wow, some
of them are hot.” What do you
do?
It’s important to weigh the
options before rushing in and
switching significant others.
Just because that guy in your
Spanish class LOOKS like an
Abercrombie model doesn’t mean
he is worth giving up your boy back
home for (in defense of the boy
back home , he must have done
something note wor
thy to merit sticking
with him through
Lauren Melfa
dlmelfa@elon.edu
Columnist
school).
Longdistance
romance is tough to
maintain. Trust me,
but it also gives you
something to look forward to on
breaks, which is definitely a
perk.
Next we’ll look at random
hook-ups. Sure, this is fun and a
favorite pastime of many. It’s com
pletely commitment free, totally
spontaneous and allows you to make
a whole bunch of new friends. The
downsides involve who exactly you
end up with and the bizarre after
effects. The after effects seem to be
worse for girls than for guys.
Girls get harassed and con
stantly reminded of who they have
made out with, guys see this as
strangely status forming. Worse
still is the slight problem of who
you get together with.
Say you are at a party one
night and the next
day your roomate
informs you that
not only did you
manage to dance
on a table with a
lampshade on your
head, clad in a bed
sheet toga, but you
also disappeared
for awhile with that
weird guy/girl
from your Econ.
class. You know the one who
wears the same shirt everyday and
looks as though he/she has a chronic
fear of soap?
Somehow I doubt anyone
would be happy about those ru
mors spreading around, especially
since they could possibly kill your
chances of having a member of the
opposite sex glance in your direc
tion ever again, not to mention the
money you will waste on tooth
paste and mouth wash .rying to rid
your mouth of unwanted germs.
Next we have the people who
do miraculously meet someone at
school and manage to begin a fairly
happy and exclusive relationship with
them. These people depress the long-
distancers and confuse the hook-up-
pers. Unfortunately this situation is
no piece of cake either.
You get to see that person ev
ery single day...24/7 most likely,
which can get older than the variety
of food at Octagon, only faster. Not
only that, but while you are off mak
ing googly eyes at your new found
love (yeah that’s what they call it
these days), your roommate may be
then driven into a state of “sexile”.
Such states force them to wander the
halls in search of something to do
and lead them to avoid the couch like
the plague.
This is an extreme case but
dating at school is a complexity all in
its own, which is great for those who
can work it out. And if by some
strange means this wonderful rela
tionship comes to a screeching halt,
you still have to see that
person...everyday...24/7, which
might not be the treat it once was.
So there are a whole bunch of
enticing options out there, whether
“Mr./Miss Right” is found here,
seven hours away or at the next party,
it all makes up more of that “aca
demic” college experience ...right.
Clues as to what your “rip-oflP’ meal plan is really paying for
Teresa Bateman
tbateman(2) elon.edu
Columnist
Elon College wants to be
recognized as giving students
the best deal for their money. How
ever, this is only in terms of tuition.
The meal plan is a different story.
The way the meal plan works is ri
diculous in my mind, and is certainly
not the best deal for the students.
For the majority of my life my
parents encouraged me to eat three
meals a day in order to stay healthy.
This totals 21 meals a week, however
when signing up for Elon’s meal plan,
there was no 21 meals a week option.
The highest was 19 meals and it cost
a fortune. I reluctantly signed up for
the 15 meals a week plan and tried to
think of how I would live without my
needed meals.
When I got to campus I was
amazed at how my appetite had grown.
All of the walking across campus to
Harden and Moffitt really wipes a
girl out. However instead of be
ing able to eat when I wanted to,
I had to calculate when and how
many meals I could eat in a day.
Just two meals a day and one extra
one tagged on somewhere during
the week.
I found myself happy that
my roommate and I had extra
food in the room. Shouldn’t din
ing services take care of our
hunger needs? Where else is our
$2,000 going to if not for food?
Perhaps the biggest rip off
of all is the exchange rate for our
wonderful meal plan. My best
friend Mindel came to visit me the
second weekend of college. That
Saturday we spent the whole day
and night at a concert, jumping,
screaming and signing at the top
of our lungs. When we woke up
on Sunday Mindel wanted to go to
Harden and grab some breakfast.
I regretfully informed her that
breakfast was not included in my
meal plan because I only had 15
meals per week and I usually eat
lunch and dinner and grab a shake
once in awhile.
So we held our stomachs for
a few hours and made the long trek
down to Harden to feast on lunch.
Our meals at McEwen and Harden
are valued at are valued at 5.50, so
-Mindel had to fork over that money
in order to eat.
However when we went to
Octagon later, I found out that my
meal plan there is only worth 2.50.
What causes the huge difference in
the exchange rates? It isn’t that the
government subsidizes our dining
halls because we are a private insti
tution.
So I don’t know why our
meal plan is basically worthless
at the College Coffee shop
or Octagon Cafe, but the discrep
ancy annoys me.
Also with our meal plan we
have to plan accordingly to when
and where we can eat. On Tues
days and Thursdays I am in class
from 10:30 until 2:00 and
McEwen, the dining hall closest to
me closes at the magical hour of 2,
so there goes my lunch on that part
of campus.
I usually walk across cam
pus to Octagon and have my little
chicken sandwich and small
drink.. .because I don’t want to go
over my meal plan worth of 2.50.
I also wonder why McEwen
is closed all weekend. Students are
still here on campus during the
weekend, and don’t those on the
“academic building side” of cam
pus have stomachs?
Nope I guess not, and yet
again we have to walk all the way
down to Harden to eat. Harden
boasts that it is open 24 hours, but
it doesn ’ t serve food for all of those
hours, just certain times.
This causes students to look
to other places to find nourishment
for their growing college bodies.
Also, why do the dining halls
not open until 11? For those who
attend church on Sunday it might be
nice to be able to grab some real
breakfast before attending the ser
vice, not just cereal in their rooms.
So to sum it all up the meal
plan we signed up for is a rip-off. We
are paying around $2,000 to eat in
dining halls that only opereate on
certain hours that are not convenient
to students.
On the weekend McEwen
closes down forcing the students on
that side of campus to find some
where else to eat. The exchange rate
for the meal plan in the different
campus eating areas doesn’t match
up.
So where exactly is our money
going? I don’t know but I am
hungry,,.oh wait it’s three in the
afternoon, no McEwen for me, I guess
I will have to wait until dinner.