Roses are Red, Violets are Blue

The third column of 2nd semester.

Roses are red; violets are blue. Sixty percent of Cornellians marry one another. This Valentine’s Day, I wondered, is that rumor really true? A sizeable percentage of Cornellians meet their future spouses on campus. For Jessica Shaw ’99 and her fiancé Joel Raha ’99, “Our relationship struck up senior year at a Zinck’s Night sponsored by the Class of 1999 to celebrate 99days before graduation. Eight years later to the month we began dating, he proposed to me,” she shared. More recently, Matt O'Connor ’06 and Summer Peck ’07 were engaged. They were set up by Summer's sorority sisters for a formal dance, and the rest is history.

Significant forces propel these and other Cornell couples together — attraction, common interests, and shared values. Of course, the nearness in proximity, or propinquity, certainly helped. Bumping into a cool guy in the dining hall often enough is bound to lead towards an eventual date, right? But, wait … did we actually date in college? Do “watch a movie in my room” or “meet at that party” count as the formal invitations of our parents’ generation? You can blame it on the studying not leaving us any time to make plans in advance or the desire to just hook up on the dance floor, but dating in college is more of an anomaly than a frequent occurrence.

To be fair, amidst this environment, we adapted. We dated by going ice skating in Lynah Rink or meeting for Bubble Tea. Sometimes, those dates evolved into boyfriends who I saw around campus everyday. As our relationships developed, I grew to know them within a world of shared social lives, student organizations and academic deadlines. Of course, when we broke up, I wished the campus were bigger so that I wouldn’t bump into them so often.

While some of us stay in relationships that began on campus, maintaining them can be challenging. After Cornell, our paths take us in directions where we are no longer a five-minute walk from our significant other. Long distance can make the heart grow fonder, or it can do just the opposite. Once one person feels the other isn’t trying, love fades quickly. Sometimes, it can be hard to let go, but in the end, moving forward makes you happier. Even when a couple moves to the same city, jobs put new pressure on our love lives.

After college, whether one is suddenly single or still searching, how has dating changed, for better or for worse?...

Continue reading the column here.