• Home
  • Staff
  • Privacy Policy
  • News Tips/Press Releases
  • Advertising
Monday, May 23, 2022
No Result
View All Result
The Times-Delphic
  • News
    • All
    • Administrative News
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • The Ones

    Indira Sheumaker, city councilmembers find common ground among conflicts

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake to build University Center

    Student Senate passes resolution in support of the transgender community

    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • All
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
    • Tennis
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball

    Promising 2022 NFL Draft for Packers fans

    The two national parks you should visit this summer

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    Former Drake Basketball Player Wins National Championship

    The Top Moves of NFL Free Agency

    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • All
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
    • Letter to the Editor

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: How to meet your next partner in 2022

    Commentary: “Oh… We’re Not Dating…”

    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • All
    • Greek Life
    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    Painted Street recap

    Bam Bam wins Drake University’s 43rd annual Beautiful Bulldog Contest

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Humans of Drake Podcast

    Bulldog Blitz 1: December 7, 2010

    The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

  • Relays Edition

    Bill that would make Iowa a hands-free driving state stalls in the legislature

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    State of Sustainability at Drake

    Dean Kathleen Richardson: Leaving a Legacy for the Drake SJMC

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion
  • News
    • All
    • Administrative News
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • The Ones

    Indira Sheumaker, city councilmembers find common ground among conflicts

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake to build University Center

    Student Senate passes resolution in support of the transgender community

    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • All
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
    • Tennis
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball

    Promising 2022 NFL Draft for Packers fans

    The two national parks you should visit this summer

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    Former Drake Basketball Player Wins National Championship

    The Top Moves of NFL Free Agency

    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • All
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
    • Letter to the Editor

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: How to meet your next partner in 2022

    Commentary: “Oh… We’re Not Dating…”

    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • All
    • Greek Life
    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    Painted Street recap

    Bam Bam wins Drake University’s 43rd annual Beautiful Bulldog Contest

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Humans of Drake Podcast

    Bulldog Blitz 1: December 7, 2010

    The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

  • Relays Edition

    Bill that would make Iowa a hands-free driving state stalls in the legislature

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    State of Sustainability at Drake

    Dean Kathleen Richardson: Leaving a Legacy for the Drake SJMC

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion
No Result
View All Result
The Times-Delphic
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Old-fashioned courtships non-existent

byLASARA BOLES
April 24, 2013
in Opinion
0 0
0

Column by Lasara Boles

Boles is a senior English major and can be reached at
lasara.boles@drake.edu

Perfectly scripted romantic movies and novels would have us believe that love begins with a sacred first date, sealed with a magical kiss and the noble boy will always get the virtuous girl, just like he has for centuries. These stories feed our nonsensical desire to believe in “soul mates” and “love at first sight.” The sacredness of the first date is nonexistent because the first date itself is nonexistent
in reality.

Real relationships are blurry, without clear beginnings and ends. Our fascination with adorably matched movie stars may be out of touch with reality, but this is why we love them.

Real life is a succession of interactions with pets, cars, family, nature, phones, etc., and isn’t interesting to anyone who isn’t us. Real-life dating is messy and unconventional, yet we crave love stories because they imply the possibility of order and a happy ending to our unpredictable, entropy-bound universe.

At their core, movies are advertisements with more extensive plots, designed to make us feel good enough that we want to watch the next one and bad enough to create dissatisfaction within us.

Dissatisfied citizens are an essential component in a consumerist nation. What we watch encourages us to believe if we didn’t get flowers on our anniversary, we must be unlovable because movies place value on the anniversary the first date creates. We are unable to reconcile what we see on screen and what we see in our relationships. This is a valuable myth to the makers of heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and sentimental cards. We pay for these manufactured sentiments because we agree to romanticize the first date.

So, where did the first date go? Old-fashioned courtships of earlier centuries followed a different path than they do on today’s college campuses. Parties, text messaging, Facebook-stalking, hook-ups and the occasional lasting relationship have replaced long, exclusive courtships and hand-holding.

We don’t need lengthy courtships anymore to discover what a potential mate believes or looks like in a bikini. We can see all that on Facebook. Just as the invention of the automobile created a space for courting boys and girls to be alone, social media allows us to connect to more people than ever before, substituting face-to-face interactions with cyber-connections and creating non-conventional
meeting places.

Can the “location” of a first date be in cyberspace at the corner of Facebook and Tumblr? Perhaps Hallmark could investigate the marketability of an “I knew it was love from the moment I saw your profile pic” greeting card. For better or worse, technology is changing the way we do everything, including dating.

Though I’m initially inclined to condemn fellow student’s dating behavior — shunning exclusive partners, doing whatever with whomever — I can’t honestly dismiss them as or virtue-less when they are upholding a version of the same anti-first-date attitude I have. In their own way, they’re screwing the system that dictates what a relationship must look like. More
power to them.

If 30 years after college, you are still going strong with your college sweetheart, it is more likely a product of compromise, respect for each other and shared values than a perfect first date. No one truly understands the sacredness of the first date until hindsight reveals a lasting relationship. By that time, the actual date of the first date is forgotten, making your love less like a movie and more real.

Tags: opinionRelationships

LASARA BOLES

Next Post

Finding the definition of equality

Twitter Feeds

The Times-Delphic
The Times-Delphic @timesdelphic

BREAKING: Drake President Marty Martin announced in a campuswide email that Drake's number of active cases is projected to decline to 80 by the end of the day, down 241 since early Friday afternoon.
View on Twitter
2
10
The Times-Delphic
The Times-Delphic @timesdelphic

We've added an update to this article about the COVID-19 surge on campus. https://t.co/MaXtlQ4w2j
View on Twitter
0
4

Recommended

Egypt hot topic on campus, in lecture

9 years ago
The Process Behind Painted Street

Drake Relays’ staple Painted Street cancelled due to COVID-19

2 years ago

Popular News

  • Twitch Streamer Raises Money for LGBT Community

    Twitch Streamer Raises Money for LGBT Community

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Gladwell’s “Outliers” reveals the many factors of success

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Drake ranks among Ivy Leagues on Economist list

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The history of Indian boarding schools in Iowa

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Music as a political platform

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Humans of Drake Podcast

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Familiar face helps bring massive skatepark to Des Moines

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The rise and fall of Motown Records

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Connect with us

  • About
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Privacy Policy
  • Virtual Edition
  • Advertising

Copyright 2015 Fuel Themes. All RIGHTS RESERVED.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
  • Relays Edition
    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion

Copyright 2015 Fuel Themes. All RIGHTS RESERVED.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Bodybuilder is fighting for his life after taking dirty steroids femara uk trump's "operation warp speed" for mass vaxxing. "big bucks for big pharma" - global research