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Volume CXXXII, Number 14 |
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Just say nay to PDA
KARA OPPENHEIM
COLUMNIST
So let's assume that one of the hypothetical pickups I discussed last week works for you. You got the in, had a sleepover, wrote a few emails, had a couple of meals, and are now madly in love. Or, you are still at that party and can't seem to make it back to your room. In either case you may be tempted to engage in some public displays of affection. Don't. In talking about such a crude subject, there is no nice way to say it: PDA IS NOT OKAY.
Carrie agrees with me: "I have been in relationships before. I have been in love or in deep lust even. But in either case, it is fully unnecessary to exhibit this to everyone else."
This is not to say that one should feel compelled to hide his or her relationship with another. PDA is a far step from, say, being fined for sitting with a girlfriend at lunch. And there are polite and decent ways to show one's feelings. Sharing a meal with a loved one is not obnoxious. Holding hands with said loved one: acceptable as well. Being so insistent on holding hands with said loved one in line at said meal that people cannot get to the toaster: unacceptable. Along the same lines: exchanging a look at a party when someone mentions the restaurant you went to on your first date is fine. Exchanging spit is not.
It seems to me that people engage in PDA for two reasons. One is because they are just so absolutely enthralled with the person they are with that they cannot bear to keep their hands off them. However, there are many things that might be tempting to do in public that we do not. If you really have to go to the bathroom on the way to a class, you would not stop and do it in the middle of the quad. Likewise, no matter how much you enjoy walking around naked after a shower, you would not walk around campus naked. There is a private realm and a public realm and in advanced society, we draw a line between the two. I am not talking about manners in the sense of the orientation of your silverware but rather for the same reason you would not subject your grandmother to an expletive-filled outburst, you should not submit your fellow Bowdoin students to watch you make out with somebody. And on those rare occasions that you really do forget yourself, which of course may happen to even the best of us, you should be accordingly mortified and apologize to those who had to witness.
Another explanation for PDA is that a person is so insecure that they feel the need to make sure everyone around them knows that there actually is someone out there who finds them attractive (at least for the moment). These are the same people who will interrupt a conversation to whisper and giggle to their boyfriend or girlfriend in such a conspicuous manner that the rest of the group must watch and wait until the couple is done or goes to find a bedroom. They might also be that couple who is so excited their pickup worked that they go at it right then and there at a the party.
"Dude," says Parker, "I've had a girlfriend for two years. I know we're going out. She knows we're going out. All our friends know we're going out. No one needs to see it. That's like private stuff anyway."
Exactly, Parker. Private stuff.
I realize I am taking a drastic stance here, so I do not want it to be misconstrued. I am not in any way criticizing love or lust. I am just saying that I do not condone exhibitionism. Now repeat after me: PDA is not okay.
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