Articles

CAUTION: ENTERING THE LAND OF MONOGAMY
THE HOYA
SEX ON THE HILLTOP
APRIL 25, 2003

As Sex on the Hilltop 2002-03 draws to a close with this final column, it’s fittingly ironic that I find my dating life in opposition to almost every article I wrote in the last eight months.

Oops.

Echoes of columns past have come back to haunt me as I find myself in a previously unimaginable situation. 1) I have a boyfriend. 2) He’s not older. 3) He’s a lot younger. And 4) Julia’s Foolproof Rules of Dating have been bulldozed by our courtship.

This isn’t subtle irony, the delicate trace of satire flirting with my life. Oh no, this is a bludgeoning mockery of my relationship mantra, compelling me, no - pitching me - off my dating high-horse and into the mud with the rest of you. Luckily I have a good sense of humor. While you may not have committed my columns to memory, I am well aware that they are web-searchable. So let me be the first to add a grain of salt to my own advice. I call this process “Irony is …”

Irony is writing an entire column decrying the practice of dating younger guys, then finding yourself, ahem, dating a younger guy. “I vow never to date a younger guy. 24, 27, 32 — those are fine. 20? No. Not gonna happen.”

Yeahh … about that. Well, 20 didn’t happen. 19 did.

Irony is making the assumption that a wizened dater such as myself could never have anything in common with a lowly and unproven freshman, then letting such a freshman prove me wrong.

Remember my Valentine’s Day love experiment? I certainly didn’t take young Tom seriously — after all, he was three years my junior! Well, I still don’t take Tom seriously (sorry, Tom), but now I’m beginning to think that three years isn’t the insurmountable obstacle I once thought it to be.  After all, if 30-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow can date a 26-year-old, I can probably handle a similar age differential. And don’t worry, Tom — you’ll find a May-December relationship of your own one day.

Irony is mercilessly harassing “poor little freshman” who “haven’t quite perfected the art of Booty Calling. ‘Um, I think, uh, it might be good … um … if you came over. And you could see my room! Yeah. So what do you think?’”

… and then finding yourself doing the walk of shame with a smile, all the way home from New South.

Irony is breaking every one of The Rules you advocated for the last two years.

Rule 5) “Don’t Get Involved Too Quickly”
Um, yes, that rule went out the window when we decided to be exclusive seven whole days into the relationship.

Rule 8) “Don’t Call Him”
Also failed. I’ve had to upgrade my cell phone plan. It’s a problem.

Rule 9) “Don’t Accept a Saturday Night Date After Wednesday”
“The key here” I wrote back then, “is to emphasize the fact that you’re not just a plaything who will join him on five minutes notice … You will think that he’s phoning you at 2 a.m. Friday night because he’s madly in love with you and needs to hold your hand while strolling along a beach right then. You will be wrong.”

Let’s see. He first called on a Friday evening for a date 24 hours later. He got turned down. Julia – 1, Future Boyfriend – 0. It went downhill from there. After our first date the following Thursday, he wanted to see me the next day … and the next … Five minutes notice? No problem! Three weeks later I got a call at 4 — not even 2 — a.m., and I concluded that yes, he was madly in love with me and needed to hold my hand while strolling down a beach. Except I wasn’t wrong. I know this because he happened to be on a beach right then, and it wasn’t within Booty Call Range.

And here’s where irony really struck — and how I really knew I was in trouble. I broke Rule 4) “Don’t Pay. Ever.”

That’s right … I voluntarily contributed money for a meal. GASP.

My friends were beside themselves, worrying that I had gone off the deep end. “Don’t worry,” I tried to reassure them, “I won’t join the Cult of the Boyfriend.” Distinguished by the “him, him, him, it’s all about him” domination of conversation and thoughts, the inseparable “there goes Mike-and-Jen” joined at the hip 24-7 behavior, an unrelenting urge to make mix tapes featuring Celine Dion and George Michael, the Cult of the Boyfriend has stolen numerous friends from me. Months later they’ll reemerge, scarred, bitter and prone to long winded stories about how The Ex used to do this and The Ex used to say that, but they don’t care because they’re totally over him and oh-my-god, is that his new girlfriend?? Is she thinner than they are?!?

Contrary to every teen magazine on the newsstands, that sad state isn’t an obligatory part of couple-hood.

While I still believe what I wrote back in October: “casually dating multiple people is an excellent way to hedge your bets — it broadens your dating portfolio,” I’ve started to come around to another perspective. My methodical, rules-bound “dating with a lowercase ‘d’” blinded me to the full range of possibilities, to the point where I looked right past someone who could make me ecstatically happy because he didn’t exactly match my demographic profile of an ideal date.

So maybe love doesn’t always follow the rules! After all, that kind of sentiment is inherently exceptional. Is there still a place for the old-fashioned rule-based dating? Sure! Given that you have a limited amount of time and can only date so many people, it makes a lot of sense to focus on those with whom you’ll be most likely to have a connection. However, one can only plan and predict so much. Sometimes fate just butts in …  

When it does, you have to be ready to just go with it. As my roommate’s boyfriend said, “When you find the right person for you, don’t let him slip through your fingers. When you find a person you can love, you gotta hold on to it with both hands.”

Even if that person is a freshman younger than your little brother.

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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, YOU MAY GET IT
THE HOYA
SEX ON THE HILLTOP
APRIL 11, 2003

Well, I asked for it.

“What must I do to get a reaction?” I wrote in the March 28th column. Apparently request one. And getting written up in the Washington Post doesn’t hurt, either.

I must say, the results were interesting. My mail fell into four general categories: women offering encouragement, men seeking advice, marriage proposals, and desperate messages from my dad begging me to change my last name so he wouldn’t receive any more calls from former classmates wondering if “that sex columnist at Georgetown” is indeed his daughter.

But far and away the most common complaint I received was that my column doesn’t include enough SEX.

“Since you asked,” wrote one such reader, “I have a suggestion. Maybe the column could use more Sex. Sex as in the exchange of bodily fluids, receiving and giving pleasure, attending to particular parts of the body, consummating love and desire. You get the idea.”

Yeah, I get the idea.  Although I’m not sure the University administration does.  Are we even allowed to have sex here?

I suppose we could just stick to exchanging bodily fluids then — without condoms on the doors, that should be easy!

Another reader questioned the relevancy of my articles to the male student population. “When I read your column,” he wrote, “I feel like I am attending Lilith Fair, well, maybe an all girls sleepover, complete with crank calls and all. Where's the toilet papering?”

For the record, I haven’t toilet papered at an all girls sleepover for years. Okay, months. And back then we didn’t make prank calls, we practiced blowjobs on fruit.

That reader continued with specific suggestions, “You should really try to solicit the male population at Georgetown in order to get a more well rounded opinion as opposed to publishing your weekly autobiography.”

Write what you know! Isn’t that what English professors always say? Fine, fine. No one wants to read my autobiography, I get it. (Unless it includes dating congressmen, right? Not that I would know anything about that.) But my stories are meant to be illustrative of the dating trends that many people deal with on a regular basis here at our lovely university.

Or maybe not. One reader opined that my writing isn’t age appropriate. “I would like to see your column advance from its middle school advice of when I should call a girl (of which I learned years ago) and evolve into a mature column with issues that are more prevailing to our college aged community.  People at Georgetown, myself included, need to know the truth behind sex. This isn’t MIT; although we are not the most aggressive and good looking of our peers, we definitely deserve more than we are getting (pun intended).”

He may be right — I suppose I haven’t shed much light on the “truth behind sex.” Alright. I’ll get around to that as soon as he teaches the slower of his male Georgetown peers when to call a girl. Then we’ll both go help the poor fellows at MIT, because although we may be having less sex, we’re definitely better looking than they are.

Speaking of sex — or the lack thereof — one reader speculated on the Hilltop dearth of that most basic of acts. “My theory,” he wrote, “is that people on the East coast are afraid of sex. Either that, or they don’t know what it is. In California, it was a reasonable expectation to go out at night and bring a girl home and have sex with her. Here, that is nonexistent. Maybe its the hot weather out there that makes people horny, but there is something here that does the opposite.”

Afraid of sex! Yes, yes we are. There are many reasons for this fear … God, Juan Gonzalez, the Washington Post, to name a few. This is why we here at Georgetown like to drink so much. It dulls the pain of sexual repression.

But enough about sex.

There were other (non-sex-related) missives that stood out in my mailbox.

Reader #1: The Misguided Poet (if ee.cummings wrote responses to dating columns)
“in the haze of an monday afternoon, when i desire to not do work, googling resulting in dating advice columns, breaks the rainy tone. dating with a little d, i did that. everyone thought i was dating everyone, and flirting lost all meaning.”

Notice the use of lower case, the new verb “to google” and randomly interspersed punctuation. Clear case of Seasonal Affect Disorder/ attendance at too many Barnes & Noble Poetry for Bureaucrats seminars.

Reader #2: The Witty Skeptic
“It appears to me your solicitation for reader feedback in you latest column is simply a veiled attempt to assemble a large e-mail database for sale to a telemarketing firm for a six figure return. Thank you, but I already know how to lose 200 lbs. in 2 weeks, add 3 inches to my manhood all while enjoying the benefits of a 4.5% home equity loan. … I have printed all of your posted columns and will attempt to read at least one each morning prior deleting all of the amazing offers for eternal youth pills from my in-box.”

Shoot! This guy figured me out. I’ve been selling the names and email addresses of everyone who writes me to a company called Help for Repressed Catholic College Students, Inc. They don’t offer eternal youth pills, but for a small fee, they will send you condoms and a bible.

Reader #3: The Proposing Suitor
“I find it outrageous and impossible that you receive no fan mail.  Whoever is responsible for such a lapse in protocol ought to be found, beaten with a switch and deported to Guantanamo Bay.  How can we expect a sex columnist to do her job without the raw material she needs to keep up on the action? I, for one, refuse to let this situation stand a moment longer. We should do lunch. I have big plans, you could help.
By the way, will you marry me?”

In case I should hesitate, he attached his photo, in a pose which he lovingly referred to as “Le Tigre.” What girl could possibly resist!?!

Reader #4: Short and Sweet
“I'm officially in love.”

Now that’s the type of fan mail I like to receive.

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