BY FLETCHER WORTMANN

In print | Published October 23, 2008

It is an unfortunate consequence of The Phoenix’s ‘no-pseudonym’ policy that none of our columnists feel comfortable writing a romantic advice column. In the past, brave souls would offer to our community a biweekly psychosexual self-portrait, an extensive subtextual catalogue of his or her consumption of Dan Savage articles, a recollection of high-school seminars involving the sexy preparation of latexy bananas and unhealthy amounts of explicit fan fiction. Sadly, times have changed, and the threat of Google-savvy employers has left us without this biweekly gush of erotic incoherence.

Until now! The Swarthmore community demands smutty romantic advice from a repressed adolescent, and there is no one so completely unqualified who is as qualified to do it as myself. Hang a sock on the doorknob and drag your unconscious roommate into the hall, boys and girls, because it’s time for “Charming Uncle Fletcher’s Sexy Cavalcade of Highly Inappropriate Boy-Girl Stuff and Assorted Permutations Thereof: Birds, Bees, Battlestar Galactica.”

(Mom? You should stop reading now. Thanks.)

In order to understand Swarthmore romance, I believe, one must first understand the Swarthmore student. The college attracts intelligent, highly motivated students with diverse interests, and in high school these kids get less ass than a urinal. To them, college represents a chance to start again. It is autumn, after all, and the leaves are falling and the bugs are dying of hypothermia, and so the life-denying perspective of Swarthmore freshmen there is no greater aphrodisiac. Every bashful young hermione and hermionoe comes to Swat with two fundamentally irreconcilable objectives in mind: they want to find their soul mate, correlate, commingle, misconstrue and reconcile sobbing in the rain, then eventually marry and raise children together; and they Want to Make Love in This Club.

The relationships that develop, I would argue, are not necessarily healthy ones.

Here, interest is conveyed by an exchange of tentative glances and half-smiles, as neither participant is willing to risk the heartbreak of unrequited eye contact, and so the heads of the besotted whip from side to side so rapidly as to induce motion sickness. This is usually as far as things go. Swarthmore students are rarely proactive in relationships. People here study online correspondence like the Gnostic gospels in an attempt to decode some hidden cryptogram of attraction; they create freshmen hot lists online and then do not contribute to them, apparently so tantalized by the possibility that hot freshmen may be listed by others that to actually list hot freshmen would be unimaginably decadent. On Valentine’s Day they send school-sponsored ninjas to anonymously attack their intended, which seems quirky and charming until you remember that they’re hiring goddamned ninjas. This place is a festering hive of thwarted romance. I want you to carefully consider each of your friends who, by virtue of gender and orientation, might conceivably be attracted to you. Because they are. Every one of them. Look across the table at Sharples and deep into the eyes of your supposedly platonic acquaintance, because I can guarantee that he or she is currently entertaining explicit fantasies of you driving a minivan filled with wailing children, of you sitting together on a porch in your twilight years, tenderly clutching withered hands and then suffering adorable simultaneous heart attacks.

But for the sake of argument let us assume that things, somehow, work out. A couple will often debut lurching ritualistically together on a crowded dance floor; Swarthmore students require not only alcohol but also the implicit approval of dozens of other intoxicated couples, each publicly performing their own rendition of the vertical horizontal flamenco, in order to communicate what was conveyed in middle school by a scrap of paper with DO YOU LIKE ME CHECK YES OR NO written on it. Assuming all the appropriate bumps and grinds are initiated, they will then stagger off together, usually losing momentum between secondary and tertiary bases. From here the relationship is allowed to bloom like a sensitive, diseased flower, covered in tiny ants. Every aspect of it becomes a dynamo of anguish and emotional paralysis. Which of the countless permutations of “dating” listed on Facebook best describes our unique and special relationship status? What is the ideal mixtape algorithm? How many Death Cab songs should I use? And for the love of all that is holy, what is this “L” word and when is it best employed? One week or only six days? They clasp hands and buy little presents at the bookstore and sit on each other in public because honestly, if you asked them, neither of them has any idea what they are doing, and they are terrified. There are of course moments when this delicacy is lost, at events such as the infamous Sager party or the costumed ‘Screw Your Roommate’ dance (thankfully almost always a meaningless double-entendre), when these inhibitions are discarded like so much frilly underwear. Dating at Swat is a mating dance in a biotech lab, performed by the last Galapagos tortoise and a perplexed but nonetheless intrigued blue-footed booby. The irony is that, by so diligently cultivating our community’s intelligence, we have lost any sense of coherent design.

Swarthmore does have a small population of attractive and friendly ‘mainstream’ students, and woe, woe unto these rare, pitiful creatures. Like the Siberian Tiger, they are coveted for their beauty and are hunted relentlessly by those ignorant of their violent temperament and convinced that their kidneys possess medicinal properties. They are condemned to a life of voluntary chastity, scorning endless queues of apologetic suitors. Hopefully, we can some day establish a sanctuary for these creatures, perhaps even create a stable breeding population and introduce legacy students, born in captivity, back into the wild. But these collegiate unicorns—beautiful, extraordinary, yet puzzlingly resistant to being touched by virgins—are rare.

The rest of us are left to stumble, blind and deaf and mute, through the dank subterrain of the Swarthmore dating scene. Only a few dare challenge the system. Only the brave decide that they’ve had enough of standing in the corner of the party with a drink, continuously readjusting their posture so as to suggest ‘introspection’ and ‘cool disinterest’ and ‘maybe sort of like a contemporary Mr. Darcy’ rather than ‘serial murderer,’ and then step out onto the dance floor.

And some do not. Some decide that they are actually quite comfortable in their corner, thank you very much; some struggle to assemble coherent sentences when faced with an attractive member of their preferred gender; some publish satiric, extremely verbose newspaper articles in some misguided attempt to impress girls. Incidentally? Research suggests that these tactics do not have a particularly inspiring rate of success. Because people here are childish and incomprehensible and are confused by basic conversation and if you try to actually talk (god forbid!) at a party, let’s say, they’ll make some half-assed excuse and scamper away sniggering with their friends like they’re in middle school seriously what in the name of Christ is wrong with you people?

I mean, whatever. You know what? She threw away the keys to a hot rod. Specifically a 2008 concept Camaro hot rod that transforms into a giant robot. That kind of hot rod. So anyways.

In the end, I think we have to resign ourselves to disappointment. Our expectations are unrealistic. We compare ourselves, impossibly, to the great love stories of our time. When will the John find his Yoko, we ask, the Mary Jane her Spider-person? When will the smarmy sales associate find his passive-aggressive redhead receptionist? When will the adorable yet monosyllabic googley-eyed trash compactor find his flying iPod? Never. No one will ever love you, here or anywhere else. You will die alone.

But no matter. I’ve been here for three-and-a-half years, and I think I’ve figured this place out. I know when to go out and when to stay in and get things done. I’ve got no time for modern love.

Fletcher is a senior. He is single, and could conceivably be considered ‘swinging,’ although strictly in the ‘gallows’ sense of the term. You can reach him at fwortma1@swarthmore.edu.

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