The scene was technically El Noche del Vino, but the "vino" came out of a box, casting a questionable light on the noche. Fifteen friends sitting in a circle choking down Franzia were making the most of it--playing the ultimate drinking game (besides, of course, spin the bottle): Would You Rather?
It was Sidney's turn. "Would you rather never go to another tailgate or never go to another date function?" she asked the group, who pondered the question as though she had asked for world peace action plans.
The replies came back with various levels of drunken stammering: "I love date functions!" "There are so many more date functions than tailgates." "That would mean no Lei Party" (this last one was coming from a guy, mind you--a guy who chose date functions over tailgates--honestly).
Sidney was appalled. "Drink, everyone. You are wrong, wrong, wrong. I would give up date functions over tailgates any day."
And apparently with those few words she cursed herself, as that following Saturday, after a tumultuous tailgate (which included getting "trapped" in a port-a-potty until she realized you have to turn the knob to get out), Sidney did not in fact go to her date function.
"I've become that senior who probably will not make it to a date function all year," Sidney told Daisy over brunch the next morning. "I used to hate those seniors."
"No, you are clearly coming to Barn Party this Saturday," said Daisy, who had had a lovely time the previous night and was hoping she could pull Sidney back from the Dark Side.
"I think that knowing we had Barn Party next Saturday might have been what caused the problem in the first place," Sid scowled, then smiled contemplating the future wrinkle lines that such negative expressions cause. "Having to ask dates two weeks in a row is a death sentence."
Almost 400 girls on campus were bemoaning precisely the same thing.
With semiformal season upon us and Barn Party early this year, literally hundreds of girls were having to scrounge up dates for not one, but two date functions in a row.
Faced with such immense peril (clearly second only to travesties like nuclear bombings, hurricanes and Celine Dion's prolonged Vegas stay), most take one of three approaches for at least one of the functions: 1) ask a date function frequenter who has so many date functions under his belt, he could teach a house course; 2) take a completely platonic date, who will neither read anything into it nor try to read your cleavage; or 3) use the occasion as a strategic opportunity to ask someone who might ask you in return at a later date to maximize date function earning potential.
Take, for example, Date Function Dan. As a senior, Dan has literally made every single date function cut for every single sorority (maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but if you can stomach calling Duke fun, this is not a stretch). Dan was having movie night with a "friend" Tuesday. Between the previews and credits, three different girls called to invite Dan to Barn Party, which he had to decline because naturally he was already going.
Taking a friend is an oft-used safe bet as well--as long as both parties realize it is just that. Enough said, on that one; you can undoubtedly imagine.
The third possibility demonstrates how well-versed Duke students are at networking. The I-ask-you-under-the-theory-that-you-will-remember-me-at-your-next-function shows a certain understanding of efficiency and game theory that kids at Chapel Hill clearly could not handle.
But the date function, sadly, is not always that simple. If it were, there would be more bouncing up and down on the ellipticals this week and less trudging. What if you want to ask someone you are interested in? At a school with limited (read: no) dating, are date functions as close as we get to the real thing?
When you like someone but do not know how to move it in that direction, date functions are a blessing--an opportunity. For example, Meredith and Ryan's first real date was Barn Party two years ago, which ignited a fabulous multi-year relationship. But when you have been hooking up with someone regularly, date functions are a curse--a make or break point. The same function to which Meredith had asked Ryan, Sidney had not asked Aaron, though they had been hooking up for a while, and then things sort of fizzled out. Months later, he asked her with boyish honesty, "Why did you never take me to any of your date functions? Weren't we talking?" To which, of course, she not only felt mean but also very, very dumb.
Not making that mistake again, Sidney and many other girls around campus chose this year to ask the person they had been "hooking up with" (which, in case you have not yet read, Nan defines as "unplanned sexual encounters typically fueled by alcohol"; quite astute honestly). This naturally comes with its own complications. Because date functions come as close to dating as seen this campus, they are loaded with implications. And with two date functions in a row for many girls, they can send the message that a "relationship" is inadvertently forming--that things have just stepped up a notch and the hookup is now a planned sexual encounter typically still fueled by alcohol.
"It's a lose-lose-lose situation," Sidney continued to Daisy, adding Tabasco sauce to her wrap. "You lose if you don't ask, because then you are blowing them off. You lose if you do ask, because then you seem like you are overly eager. And you lose if you think about it too much because it makes you crazy?"
"But the moral of the story is, at least for this date function, it's a big field and a big barn, and by the end of the night, how much does who you asked have to do even with who you go home with?" Daisy laughed. (In truth, a 90 percent correlation exists between who you dance with to "I know who I want to take me home" and who takes you home, although confounding factors are suspected).
"Besides, these are suppose to be fun, right?"
Whitney Beckett is a Trinity senior. Her column appears every other Friday.
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