Ask Tiffany: Does dating exist at USC?

Hey Tiffany,

I’m 22, and a senior in college. As a guy, I have always wanted a relationship, which doesn’t seem to be what a lot of my friends around me are looking for at this age. I’ve been with a handful of ladies in the past couple years, and just when things seem like they might transition into something more than just “hanging out,” they back away and let me down easy. “I’m just really overwhelmed” and “I don’t think I’m putting in as much as you are into this” are things I’ve heard way too often in the past couple years. It gets harder to hear every time. Most recently, this girl and I even had the “let’s be exclusive” talk, and she even took me home to meet her parents and all that jazz. Then suddenly, she let me know she’d been seeing someone else.

At this point, I’ve hung out with someone new a couple times, but my outlook is different now. Over the past two years I feel like I’m on the outside looking in on the college hook-up culture simply because I value an emotional connection over a sexual one. Not that I refuse to reverse that priority in certain situations, I guess, but it used to take much more effort than it does now.

I know I want a relationship, but should I just put that on hold and spend my last times in college like the vast majority of those around me, immersed in the hook-up culture? Sure, something might surprise me if I do; I could meet someone awesome who wants what I want. But I know there’d be many more times where I’d be interested beyond hooking up, and then always feel unfulfilled after being with people for short amounts of time and then having to move on. Everyone says hooking up is easy and relationships are difficult, but for me, both are difficult because hooking up is not satisfying for me and so many people aren’t looking for a relationship, which is what I want.

Should I just focus on school and put the whole thing on hold? Keep going with the way I’ve been? Join everyone else on the hookup culture train? What do you think?

There is nothing wrong with valuing quantity of intimate encounters over quality; both bed hoppers and the celibate are entitled to live their lives the way they please. However, don’t try to force something that isn’t you. I sense that you wish you were a casual hook-up kind of guy, but you know you’re not. You will make things more agonizing for yourself by pretending to be. As someone who claims to “value an emotional connection over a sexual one,” getting on the hookup culture train will result in an exhausting cycle of wondering if it’s for real this time, over and over again.

Hooking up is only easy if you’re blindly blundering through with no consideration for your partners. Perfect records of mutually apathetic hookups are anomalies. Moreover, relationships definitely don’t have to be difficult, and good ones are more of a complement to your life than a sacrifice or burden.

As for your history of being let down — introspection is needed. Are you really falling for these people, or rather falling for the idea of them? Are you taking the time to get to know these ladies as friends, and are you honestly allowing them to get to know you?

Moving forward, I think it would be best to focus on yourself more, and on romance less. If it happens, it happens. Approach new relationships with no expectations, and just take things day by day. Just know you can’t hurry love, you just have to wait. Love don’t come easy — it’s a game of give and take!

Why are guys at USC not looking to date, and why are they such jerks about it?

Even though it can sometimes seem like all guys at USC would rather stab themselves in the eye than date exclusively, a lot of them are trying to be in real relationships — you should meet the one above! Try diversifying the ways in which you’re meeting people, or go after some different fellas. (Hint: Any guy that is a “jerk about it” is probably just a jerk.)

Tiffany Kuan is a senior majoring in business administration. Her blog advice column, Ask Tiffany, runs every Monday.

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