What I wish...

Since the first few weeks of school always seem to be centered around the freshman, I thought I would do a post dedicated to the same. I asked three different women what they wish they would have known about Tufts dating/hookup culture when they were in their first year. The following is what they came up with: 

DiamondInTheRough:

• ·      Boys don’t go on dates
• ·      Boys just want to have sex with you
• ·      Boys aren’t going to text you on a Wednesday because they are thinking about homework or a fantasy football draft and they don’t think they are going to hook up with a girl on a weeknight.
• ·      Guys care about quantity of girls not quality. It’s not about you. It isn’t. I wish it wasn’t true.
• ·      Boys in college aren’t logical. They are not thinking with their brain. So there is no point for you to try and figure out their motives and logic because guess what, there is no rhyme or reason to what they do.
• ·      Being boy crazy gets you nowhere.
• ·      Don’t be fooled into thinking the people you are hooking up with are your friends. If I had spent less time freshman year with the boy I was hooking up with and more time building friendships with new people, it would have been a lot better use of my time. Especially because my hookup and I no longer speak.
• ·      I don’t think losing your virginity is really important. The people I know who have lost it under pressure in college have only become more insecure since. I’m alive and I’m a virgin  -- you’ll live.
• ·      Tufts is a small school you will see everyone many times again. Keep that in mind.

GirlNextDoor:

• ·      Not every male is a rapist – I spent most of my high school career afraid of the male species.  When I came to college, I realized that that simply is not true.  However, there are a few guys who you do need to be careful with because they are just too stupid to know better. 
• ·      The fact that boys don’t really want to take you out on dates is not because you are not worth it, but they forget that’s kind of how the process is supposed to work.  Drunken hook ups are easy for them, dinner dates are “difficult” and not to mention scary.  (Boys are probably a lot more scared of you than you are of them and they can't handle rejection nearly as well.) 
• ·      Having high standards for yourself will always serve you better than having low ones, even if your dating life seems like feast or famine.  Remember that sometimes you have the upper hand.  Boys will always be a little scared of girls.

FooledMeOnce:

• ·      This is a FACT: boys in fraternities discuss hookups with ALL of their brothers. Whether via email or at a brothers meeting, his friends will know most (if not all) of the details.
• ·      Older guys have "moves" that they know work repeatedly- don’t fall for them!! 
• ·      Mystery is good. If every guy on campus knows who you are before first semester midterms (there is always that group of freshman girls- you know, the one that names itself?), you will be old news very fast, people will make up lies about you, and many, many girls will think you are very gross from a distance and reputations are hard to change at Tufts. 
• ·      You can be somewhat demanding with a non-frosh guy who is trying to hook up with you. They already believe they have the upper hand because they are older than you, so if you give in right from the start, you will be treating like a dumb, easy freshman and nothing more than that. Try to have just a little self respect and a bit of a backbone...if they end up not hooking up with you because of that, don’t take it personally, you are not the first and last girl he has been a dbag to, and he is not the last guy you’ll hook up with at tufts.
• ·      You DO NOT need to be at every party. That is lame (especially because the majority of parties at Tufts suck). People will stop reaching out to you to hang out if they know they’ll see you later in the night and by people I mean boys.
• ·      Don’t disregard freshman boys just because they are in your class and have less "social clout" (whatever that might mean at Tufts) than upperclassmen who are trying to get in your pants. When you are a senior girl and they stop paying attention to you and only to younger girls, you will feel really shitty about "the scene". This is what most of them feel like now.
• ·      Don’t be THAT girl!!!! vom dot com, everyone hates them, mean girls is very 2004, and nobody cares about social hierarchy enough at Tufts to value someone who is "the queen bee".
• ·      Avoid hooking up with roommates, best friends, pledge brothers, etc.