1. It's impossible to make everyone happy.
2. No Shave November isn't just for guys.
3. I'm never going to grow up.These vital and life-changing realizations have all been made while I was in school. What can I say, at least I have learned something useful in college. God knows (everything...but specifically) that I'm paying them enough that I should at least receive something useful out of it. Personally, if upon graduation my school offered me an apartment (all expenses paid for one year), a decent job, a full ride to the grad school of my choice, and a puppy...let's just say I'd be one extremely satisfied graduate. But unless there's a puppy, no deal (because obviously that would be the most difficult stipulation for them to pull off).
I'm not saying that getting a degree in addition to the basic 12-years of public schooling bliss isn't important. Quite the contrary, in fact. In order to get a decent job in this economy, you need to have some extra e-d-u (short for education...please try to keep up) tucked under your academic belt. Yes, it is expensive (my, you're quite observant). If there is one consistent thing that students everywhere enjoy complaining about (besides questionable cafeteria food) it's the price of tuition. If I ever have kids (geniuses, of course) and wanted to put them through school (through their academic valor, of course), it would probably cost them 4 pints of blood and their first born child. That's how ridiculous tuition is. No joke.
However, one thing that greatly irritates me (occasionally surmounting my irritation with tuition prices, girls who think leggings are pants, and 12-year-olds with iPhones) is the "highschool dating scene" that translates into the college atmosphere among the freshman, and occasionally sophomore, class. Being in college does not make you an adult. Yes, there are many new and fresh faces brimming with testosterone and estrogen (I mean males and females...nothing in between). BUT, just because you see a new attractive face, body, ect, does not mean that you should feel obligated/allowed to ask out said attractive person after knowing them for 2 months because you are "an adult" in "college."
I witnessed this phenomenon when I was a freshman and have seen it duplicated every year since. Freshmen come to college. Freshmen see pretty, opposite gendered people. Freshmen like pretty, opposite gendered people. Freshmen hang out in a group of friends with said pretty, opposite gendered people. Freshmen eventually ask out pretty, opposite gendered people. All goes well from a few weeks to nearly a year. Come back from break, and all hell breaks loose. I cannot stand it when individuals within a newly formed group of friends begin to date. If the relationship doesn't work out, the group won't stay the same. What can I say, I'm a sucker for consistency. Some of the mutual friends will stick with both friends, some will pick one friend that they are closer to, and other friends will throw their hands up in the air and wave them like they just don't care.
Ok, that last part was a bit exaggerated...I only wave one arm in the air. It happens all the time though. See if I'm wrong. Next time you're out on the wildlife preserve known as the university campus, watch the native inhabitants. I guarantee that the vast majority of couples you'll find coupling' it up won't be together in a year (maybe less). This isn't to say that I'm against all relationships. I know a vast majority of relationships that are steady, serious, and have/or likely will end in marriage. I'm overjoyed for these individuals, thrilled even. I'm merely commenting that based on how dating is often treated in a flippant, irreverent manner (for sport, curiosity, entertainment, rather than with serious and long-term intentions), I have become a bit cynical towards college dating. I almost wish that teenagers weren't allowed to date either:
A. until they got to college (that's the level of enthusiasm many of them show anyway)
B. until they have a steady job (because it's really romantic when all your dates occur on campus...)
C. when their parents tell them they can (so what if some won't be able to date until they're married...)
D. when God gives them permission
Obviously, 'D' is the absolute best answer (which is often a combination of A-C). My whole mindset as a result of such continuous unification and splintering is simply this, "I am Switzerland." Side note, have you ever considered how Switzerlanders...Switzerlandians...the Swiss feel about our use of their country in such a non-committal personification? It's kind of like saying, "I'm feeling Canadian" when you feel like calling ham "bacon," paying to much for books, and adding an "ay" to the end of all your sentences. Anyway, back to the Swiss. My whole point with this analogy is that when my friends and acquaintances break up, get together, and date in an overall ADD fashion...I try to stay out of it. I'll hang out with whoever will have me, and I'll try to show love to everyone I encounter. Albeit a very sarcastic and cynical type of verbal affection, for the most part, but I'm trying to work on that. I'm close to those I'm close with, and I try not to let their personal life choices dissuade me from doing so.
Earlier, I put college in quotes (for you non-scholarly individuals, I mean these " ") in an attempt to question the sanity and realistic nature of higher learning universities and institutes but merely to elaborate on the silliness of the emphatic belief that college=adulthood. Attending college does not make you an adult any more than working at McDonald's makes you a BigMac. College, over time, might make you a more responsible and mature adult as you live on your own and realize how much your decisions affect you. Continuing with the Mickey D's analogy I suppose translates as the longer you work, the greater potential you have of getting fat (not entirely a stretch when you think about it...).
Ultimately, in both cases, you have a chance, an opportunity. In my professional opinion, immediately diving into the dating pool in college is a mistake and (what can only be described as) an overrated cultural practice, finding your academic footing for a semester or two as a single scholar (and soon-to-be adult) is usually a wise move. However, what you choose to do in college is up to you, so in the words of the geriatric knight Harrison Ford encounters while looking for the Holy Grail, "choose wisely".
