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Volume CXXXIII, Number 15 |
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Now's not the time to give it all up
KARA OPPENHEIM
COLUMNIST
"You know what I really think?" said my friend Teddy, in a momentary lapse of machismo, "All guys secretly want to be whipped." (Figuratively, I must stress, not literally.) This, if you know Teddy, is a supremely confidential admittance. But, in fact, if Ted is actually right here, this is, more importantly, a serious crack in the fa‡ade of the "bro's before ho's" attitude that is prevalent among adolescent males. Sure, girls retort with "chicks before dicks" but they too often get grief from their friends for being, you know, lame about their boyfriend. And so I wonder what's so wrong with being a little attentive? What's the whole deal with BEING "WHIPPED"?
I'm no anthropologist, but I think in some cultures it's probably okay to dote on your loved one. From what I can tell, societies where women cater to men are labeled as "chauvinist" and those where men devote time and money to women "European." And in fact, I would like to retract my previous statement about American aversion to being "whipped" as an adolescent thing, because I think middle schoolers treat their significant others much better than high school or college students, or at least don't get teased as much for doing so.
Why this is I don't know, but I think it has something to do with awareness, cliques, sports, and experience. And not being old enough to watch things like Waiting to Exhale and Sex and the City, or Scarface and American Psycho. Because, if you can remember back that far, it was quite acceptable to spend a lot of time with your boyfriend or girlfriend and do nice things for them.
Yet now, eight or ten years later, we find ourselves ever-so-maturely saying "Duuuude, you are so whipped!" or "Oh my god, he totally has her whipped!" You are "whipped" when you do not go out with your friends because right when you are making plans, your boyfriend IMs you to say "What's up?"; whipped is sitting with your girlfriend at lunch when all of the other male athletes are at another table; it is dropping everything to drive a guy to Meddies rehearsal every single day, or dropping out of a BOC trip at the last minute because some girl's parents are up and want to meet you, or never spending a weekend at school because you can't bear a week apart and he or she is not offering to come and visit you.
And the hard thing is that all of these things must be weighed according to circumstance. It's clearly a two-sided coin: why are people letting someone dictate all of their moves, but at the same time, why are their friends so quick to assume that someone is dictating all of their moves? It's a tricky boundary, but I'm pretty sure both sides are at fault.
For the record, if Bitsy consistently breaks all plans with you to be with her boyfriend and skips out on your birthday dinner because he has a game tomorrow and she's going to sit and watch him play Madden 2000 tonight, she's lame and you shouldn't be friends with someone who's lame. Likewise, if Oliver doesn't even know that Thorne serves midnight snacks because he hasn't spent a weekend away from Dartmouth since freshman year, you might want to help him re-prioritize.
But really, there's nothing wrong with Brad deciding not to sit on the couch drinking beers and watching reality T.V. for the fourth night in a row because he's taking his girlfriend to dinner, or if Kate skips your usual Wednesday lunch to pick her boyfriend up from the airport. In fact, these are things they should be doing.
If being "whipped" or "whipping" someone is the sign of emotional dependency or insecurity ("If I don't do this, she'll break up with me"), then friends who flip out at you for dating someone are clearly just as insecure.
I think the thing for all parties involved to understand is that college is not the time to give up everything for one person. Give your heart: yes, your life: no. We are here to learn and have fun, and there's a lot of both to be had. This is not when you have to define yourself as "so-and-so's girlfriend" or think that because you're dating this girl you don't have time for anything else. College is wasted if you only do schoolwork, only go out, or only play your sport. Only spending time with one person is just as bad.
Look, nothing's better than a healthy, loving relationship; above all else, follow your heart. However, you must remember that there are so many experiences you could benefit from that it's not worth it to throw them all away. Some of your best memories of college may not be with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and your relationship will be all the healthier if you are a full and independent person.
But you don't need to spend all of your time with your friends either. If you spend time with them and time with your significant other, time doing work and your extracurriculars and you feel like your life is balanced, forget about them! They're probably just jealous anyway.
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