By: Daniel

While we may not know what happened to last week’s girl with the ugly feet (I’m sorry – please blame dining hall noise, for no particular reason other than we can all agree that it makes eating slightly uncomfortable), I’ve spent this week tuning into Whitworth’s courting rituals.

Now, I say ‘courting’ and not ‘dating’ because Whitworth’s dating scene is, how do you say, animalistic – that is, if animals followed complex social norms created by generations of sexual repression caused by purity culture and passive aggressive misogyny.

But I’m getting off topic.

This week, I listened into several conversations between Whitworthians as they attempted to flirt their way into a ring-by-spring situation.

Through this, I’ve discovered something earth-shattering about Whitworth flirting.

The basic flow of a successful courtship conversation:

• Classes
• Tests and other class-related stressors
• Mental health
• Coffee
• Random question about personal attribute that comes across as borderline offensive (optional)

Here’s what I mean by all this:

Every conversation begins with something unassuming, like “Hi, how are you?” The other person might say, “Good, how are you?” or simply “Hi, how are you?” The point of this greeting is not to gauge how deep into an existential crisis a potential mate might be in, but rather to create a space that asks probing, surface level questions. Very Whitworth.

The conversation lulls momentarily before the instigator brings up schoolwork, tests or some other class-related anxiety. The couple will joke and laugh about their respective stressors. Think sitcom.

This is when we get to the juicy bits of the conversation – the brief and empty discussion of mental health.

Taken from an overheard flirtatious conversation in the HUB: “Mental health, its’s a real thing. I didn’t think it was a real thing, but it’s a real thing.”

The potential mates then awkwardly look at each other, shift uncomfortably and stand in silence.

“Do you have a usual coffee order?” And the conversation is back on track. Here the mates relate back to a safe topic.

Gone are the days of talking about the weather. No. Too cliché. But what else can overworked college students bond over without divulging their entire childhood traumas while standing in line for food at the grill? Coffee. This is still the Northwest after all. Basically Seattle.

But back to our particular case of flirtation.

Her: “Do you like being tall?”

Him: (seven feet tall and bent in half to be able to hear her ask this question) “Well, it hurts my back.”

DISCLAIMER All persons and events in this column—even those based on real people—are entirely fictional. Any overheard names have been changed for the sake of humor. Any resemblance to other stories, people, plants, animals, places or events is purely coincidental.