It’s a Friday night at Williams and all your friends are going out. There’s no way you’re staying in. First things first, the pregame. The game is to get as drunk as possible so that you forget that this night will be a bust and nothing like the Big Ten schools that your friends attend or you wish you had gone to. So now you’re extremely drunk. You go to a party starting with multiple friends and ending the night with one. So now you’re lonely, a little bored, and the person that you have multiple classes with is approaching. You think to yourself “huh, might as well.”
At Williams, that’s what most of the nights are made of, a lot of drunk “huh, might as wells.”
There are only so many people that you can meet at Williams. Correction, there are only so many people here that want more than a hook up. There is probably a very small population of people that you’ll be interested in here in the small Williamstown community.
Your options especially decrease, if you account for the fact that you are apart of a minority.
This may go for race or sexual orientation. I don’t mean this in the “minorities can’t meet minorities” point of view. I’d like to focus on the acceptance of diversity aspect. In terms of their love lives, a lot of people at Williams think they are ready to diversify their choices in a race, personality, and other characteristics but simply use this as a way to feel progressive. Hooking up becomes everyone’s favorite way to fulfill the exploring diversity initiative requirement. From personal experience, many times people make the assumption that I’m not into something or someone because of my race, sexual orientation, or personality. Sometimes I think that we are a little less open-minded here than we advertise. It’s okay though, Williams, you’re not the only one doing it wrong; society has a lot to work on too.
Williamstown can be extremely lonely sometimes.
By sophomore year you feel like you have met everyone on campus and there’s nowhere to go. Searching for an intimate connection is difficult because most student’s maturity levels don’t go further than obsessive hookup culture.
If all these students are finding the “loves of their lives” through hooking up, why don’t I give it a try? Answer: well because I want a relationship that originates from meaningful connection. If you’re not into the party scene or hooking up then where does that leave your love life here at Williams College?
No one ever goes out on dates anymore.
We don’t approach the people we want to get to know (sober at least).Those connections that we make outside of the sloppy drunken kisses turn out to be the ones that mean the most. However, when the intent is just to hook-up it is just as messy as agreeing to tipsy Snar and chill and we lose the potential to foster substantial relationships.