WesDate The Aftermath of Ask Someone Out Week by Brian Edwards-Tiekert "We've got a problem, folks. Our collective love life is dead . . . there's not much love in the air, no spice, no lift, no life! It has settled over us like a wet blanket-quiet desperation. We need a kick (or something) in the ass." Those words, which kicked off Ask Someone Out Week in a November 14th Wespeak, brought to light one of the most troubling aspects life at Wesleyan: romance. As widely condemned as ARA, the housing lottery, and course registration, the dating scene at this school is the one weakness in student life that, try as we might, we can't blame on the administration. There is no shortage of attractive people at Wesleyan. There is no shortage of attractive people who are single. There is no shortage of single, attractive people at Wesleyan whose sexual orientation is compatible with yours. We make eye contact in the campus center, we exchange pleasantries after class, we have meaningless conversations at parties, and yet, for some reason, we're still one big lonely glob of sexual tension. The most common critique of romance at Wesleyan it that's it's incredibly polarized. Students popularly identify two kinds of relationship at Wesleyan: intense, long lasting monogamy (WESMARRIAGE), and random one-nighters (WESFLINGS). Frustration centers around the perception that there is no middle ground, no gray area where two people interested in each other can have a good time and learn more about each other. When incoming students at the first QA and BiLeGA meetings of the year ask what queer romantic life on campus is like, they're told: "It's pretty much the same as for straight people." It's not meant to be encouraging. Enter Ask Someone Out Week. Someone has the bright idea that the only way to promote dating at Wesleyan is to institutionalize it; they talk to a couple of other people, and what follows is a spontaneous large-scale publicity campaign, a truly grass roots movement. Flyers plaster the campus, bulletin broadcasts go out twice daily, announcements are made at parties, and the beauty of it all is that most of it doesn't even have to be organized. After the idea gets out, unsolicited aid blossoms- 'Melanie' and 'Leah,' who have no idea who's organized ASOW, broadcast a bulletin to the tune of "I'm a student here, and you should ask me out." The guy who posts a color-printed editorial over a urinal in the campus center has never spoken to the two who wrote the original Wespeak. Across campus, constant pressure is brought to bear on Wesleyan's masses of lonely singles in hopes that a miraculous transformation will occur. The result? One of the biggest non-events on campus this semester. Everyone gets excited. A few people go on dates. A few people get rejected. The vast majority never even ask anyone. Granted, I asked someone out, but I still haven't spoken to anyone else who did; I heard stories, but nothing first-hand. With ASOW we collectively acknowledged the miserable absence of dating on campus. The campaign itself demonstrated that we have the time and energy to do something about it. So what is it that still stands in our way? It seems that there's some irreconcilable gap between the conventions of dating and the nature of the community we have here. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Consider dating as an institution, a system of conventions and unspoken rules. Certainly there's enough dating manuals to support that model. Each one seeks to lay down the 'rules': who asks, who drives, who pays, what to wear, chocolates or flowers, conversation topics to avoid, acceptable activities for a first date, acceptable activities or a second date, how long to wait in between, and so on. These rules and conventions, whether acknowleged or not, are what turn the time two people spend together into a formal 'date.' What purpose does this structured, formulaic approach to romance serve? It constructs a formal social context in which people can get to know each other on a romantic level. 'Dating' in the traditional sense presumes an environment in which men and women wouldn't otherwise get to know each other; they have to make appointments (dates) to see each other, and those appointments adhere to a certain formula (the clicheed 'dinner and a movie,' for instance). Many claim dating began as an urban phenomenon in the 1920's. Men and women were segregated enough in the course of their daily lives (at work, at school, etc.) that they had to make appointments to see each other socially. The lack of community in the growing cities left people alienated enough from one another that they had to formalize even casual interaction. Compare that to Wesleyan, and you might see why dating seems out of place here. We're a small enough community that it's hard not to get to know each other. There's no great divide between the sexes: we go to class together, eat together, live together; we even share bathrooms. What's more, our conception of romance has broadened to include same-sex relationships as well. We often go on what could be considered 'dates' under other circumstances. Think about it, when was the last time you spent time alone with someone you could be attracted to? Did you have coffee in the campus center? Go to dinner together? Walk through Wadsworth? Catch a play? Call it a WESDATE. The only substantive difference between that and a 'date' is that calling something a date confirms you're attracted to the person you're with. A WESDATE's a little more ambiguous. Yet when compatible people can get to know each other in the normal course of the day, it leaves conventional dating without a pressing gap to fill. Now consider what aspects of dating might be in direct conflict with the Wesleyan community. Dating is almost exclusively a middle-class phenomenon-for the first date, a 'manual' I leafed through suggested 'two cars, public place, don't leave together;' it takes for granted that both people own and drive a car. The conventions and structures that have come to define it are heteronormative and re-enforce patriarchal gender-roles-the same manual had advice for women about men, and advice for men about women, but didn't even acknowledge that the dating pool might include queers. And in spite of 'liberated' approaches to dating, the old middle-class heterosexual patriarchal paradigm still saturates the way we conceive of it and the discourse that surrounds it. Plenty of women will say that they think it's fine for a woman to ask a man out, but how many actually do? It's easy to agree on something in the abstract, much harder to realize it when that means breaking out of a well-trod rut. The precursor to ASOW was Get the Balls to Ask a Girl Out Day, and though the writers of the ASOW Wespeak announced their event as 'longer and non-gender-specific,' the only model presented in the twice-a-day bulletin broadcasts was of men asking women out. Male voices asked female voices on dates, female voices asked to be asked out. No women asking men out, no men asking men out, no women asking women out. Now, as I pointed out above, there's no one person responsible for ASOW, no-one who intentionally left queers and assertive women out of the loop; it's just an indication that no matter what liberated facade we paste onto dating, we nevertheless think in terms of the old paradigm. Small wonder, then, that we shy away from dating at Wesleyan. It's an institution that was created in the context of a heterosexual middle-class patriarchy, and it's still associated with the ideas and power-structures of that system. Some level the same criticism at romance in the gay community that we level at romance at Wesleyan: that there is no middle ground between one-night-stands and long-term monogamy. It makes perfect sense that dating is an institution that just doesn't translate too well into certain contexts. The question is what we erect in its absence. Perhaps the biggest failure in romance at Wesleyan isn't the lack thereof, but our failure to recognize what we do have. When people complain about the lack of dating on campus, they simultaneously illegitimize the WESDATE. We do spend time with people we're attracted to. If we don't acknowledge that, if we pussyfoot along the line between romance and friendship, what happens (or doesn't) is our own damn fault. Traditional dating has this one advantage: when you ask someone out on a 'date,' it's a declaration that you find them attractive. When they say yes, the sentiment is returned, and everything that follows can build from there. All we need to do is be a little more straightforward with each other. Say "I enjoy spending time with you," "I care about you," "I'd like to see more of you," "You're beautiful," "NEWSFLASH! I find you attractive!"