I've seemed to find a consensus among students at Pomona, definitely at least with freshmen. The dating scene here is a little strange. It's just weird. There really is no dating. The vast scope of romantic involvements seem to hover around three central themes: random drunken hook-ups, ambiguously prolonged hook-ups, and seemingly "married couple" relationships.

The large amount of alcohol consumed on campus makes the first option a rather popular one. The scenario: It's Friday night, people on your hall are drinking, you grab a beer, a couple shots, then head out to the next party where there's more of the same. Pretty soon you've had twelve, thirteen drinks and you're basically wandering around with a group of stumbling people, looking for the evening's main event. You arrive on the dance floor ready to let loose and pretty soon you find yourself getting freaky with that cute girl or guy that you've seen in the dining hall a couple of times. Before you know it, the dance is over, and you've just about spent the entire night hanging onto this one person. You don't really see your friends anywhere and frankly, you don't try hard to find them. You end up arm in arm with your new found friend and the two of you somehow manage to stumble to your oddly vacant room. The door gets closed, the lights stay off, and we all hear things go bump in the night. Few words are spoken when you end your workout and the next time you see her or him in the dining hall you shyly duck out of her or his line of vision so as to avoid any awkward interaction. There aren't too many consequences that result from this kind of hook-up. Maybe the person isn't as cute as she or he seemed after you had a couple drinks, but that can be forgiven because of your altered state. And the best part is that you have an opportunity for this kind of torrid exchange at least every weekend. But what if the following weekend you wake up to find yourself next to the same person that you hooked up with last weekend? Then you may have found yourself at the beginning of something more serious, the ambiguously prolonged hook-up.

This case is almost always preceded by the drunken random hook-up. The difference is maybe this time the person is as cute as you originally thought and the next time you see her or him you don't turn away shyly, but smile and maybe say hello. Maybe the two of you have a conversation during the week and the next weekend you find yourself dancing in each other's arms again. Chemistry. At the end of the dance you once again proceed to the closest room, and when you leave this time, you're thinking that you may have found yourself in the perfect situation. You can get play every weekend without being in a relationship. It's ingenious. You don't really see your "playmate" during the week, you don't have to worry about making conversation or impressing her or him, and you guys can meet up for some fun on the weekends. However, at some point you find out that what seemed to be too good to be true at first really is just that. At some point in the string of hook-ups you find that you never really get to know this person who you've been spending so much quality time with on the weekends and that begins to bother you. The other alternative is that you find yourself liking this person and that she or he feels the same. If the first possibility is true, the hook-up ends and you can start working on that other cute girl or guy. If you find yourself in the second situation then your relationship is about to jump far forward, and the two of you will become very close, very quickly.

(As a slight aside, this may be where the whole dating concept should come in. It might also be welcome once you first find yourself attracted to the person. Instead of hooking up for the fifth consecutive time without really talking, maybe you could walk into the village for dinner, and get to know a little bit about the object of your affection. But this seemingly logical activity isn't a popular choice here at Pomona.)

So if you make it past the ambiguous stage and decide to be one with this person, you find that you have committed yourself to someone that you don't really know all that well. But that changes quickly. The relationships at Pomona seem to get very serious at speeds that would make the CPD's heads spin. This is the consequence of having your significant other live so close to you. You are always seeing her or him on the dining hall or walking by her or him on the way to class. And if you guys live in the same dorm, you just always happen to be walking by their room when their door is open. Pretty soon you find yourself spending every waking, and not-so-waking moment with this person. Hopefully you'll find that you do indeed like this person in whom you've invested a considerable amount of time. However, if you don't, it's been a waste both of your time and you may have hurt the other person while confusing yourself as well.

The dating phenomenon may have been able to prevent this situation. If it turned out positively, then maybe dating could have reversed the order of things a little bit, so that you got to know the person before you really "got to know them." Dating may be a good thing to introduce to Pomona, unless you're just looking for play, and then maybe drunken hook-up after drunken hook-up is the way to go.