During this event, we discussed romantic love, both generally and specifically at Cornell. It was a very interesting and thought-provoking experience. I am currently in a relationship, but I never really took the time to reflect on my relationship and compare it to other relationships that my peers are in. Personally, after hearing other people talk about their relationships, I felt grateful to be in the relationship I am in. After hearing someone discuss the challenges of a long distance relationship with her boyfriend, I felt very fortunate that my girlfriend goes to Cornell and that I can see her every day.

At the event, we also briefly discussed divorce and how many marriages fail due to infidelity. The rate of divorce is around 50%. Such a conversation prompted me to contemplate the institution of marriage and what it represents in terms of love and a relationship. Marriage in a way represents the ultimate culmination or conclusion to a relationship. Through the act of marriage, a couple sanctifies their relationship and declares to world that their love is one that will last a lifetime. Marriage, in other words, is the highest point on the mountain- it is the final stage of a relationship, and there is no more progression in a relationship past the point of marriage. One could argue that raising a family represents a next step in a relationship, but this is inaccurate as raising a family is a whole different pursuit all together outside of the realm of marriage. Since marriage is the final stage a relationship, oftentimes this can cause problems, as individuals naturally look forward to progression in their relationships. You first like each other and you go on dates. Next, you enter into a relationship and call each other boyfriend or girlfriend. You then eventually love one another and move in together. You get engaged, and then you get married. This potential for further forward progression in your relationship introduces excitement into a relationship. But when the question of “what’s gonna happen next?” dominates a relationship, this can lead to infidelity. Couples crave this excitement of what will happen next in their relationship, so when they make it to marriage- the final stage of their relationship- there is no more excitement, so they will cheat on their partners, as these small side relationships, as trivial and meaningless as they are, fulfill their need for excitement. The remedy to this is that couples in a relationship appreciate the love they have and do not let the excitement of the progression of their relationship (or lack thereof it in marriage) detract from their relationship.

This conversation, led by SA Andrew, was a lot different than I had initially expected. The context was a little peculiar, which made me trepidatious of signing up for the event initially—we’ve all been through middle school health class, and I personally didn’t feel a need to go through that again. However, my expectations ended up being entirely wrong. The event was interesting and there was an solid dialogue between the many students who attended, and I’m glad that I took the opportunity.

Initially, as expected, there was an awkwardness, a tension, in the air. Not many people wanted to speak up, which is understandable—it can be difficult to bring yourself to contribute in the context of something like this. To that point, I feel that there were too many people present. Perhaps it would’ve been more effective if it were broken up into two groups rather than one large one. I know that I personally would have spoken up more than I did if there were less people present; it makes the atmosphere more conversational.

Even given the circumstances though, it was still a very interesting event. Given how diverse everyone’s backgrounds are, it’s important to discuss topics like love and relationships in a meaningful way. With the stress of performing well, especially during prelims when I type this, social lives can sometimes fall by the wayside. It’s important not to ignore just how important it is.

Last week’s seminar with Andrew and Cynthia gave me quite a lot of food for thought. Throughout the past week, I’ve found myself thinking back to other students’ comments on relationships at Cornell.

Many students mentioned that they felt that Cornell’s culture was not conducive to dating, and they notice much fewer couples here than at other schools or in other parts of the country. I think there are two primary reasons for this.

The first is Cornell’s intense academic and career-oriented student population. Most Cornellians were admitted to Cornell and manage to maintain their student status here by prioritizing academics over other parts of their lives. The rigorous academic expectations and tendency of students to commit to time-intensive extracurricular pursuits has resulted in a campus culture where students have much less time for dating. Like many people at the seminar mentioned, relationships take time and work. When students are already so spread out, and prioritize these other aspects of their lives, it’s extremely difficult for them to date. Many students I know (mostly engineers) don’t even have their lives together enough to eat three meals a day, get more than 5 hours of sleep, or exercise regularly. How can they fit another person’s needs into their lives?

The second is the general culture of the northeastern United States. In the northeast, talking to strangers is frowned upon, and people are generally less friendly than in the west or the south of the country. In addition, public displays of affection are heavily frowned upon. I’ve spent seven years of my life in high school and college in the northeast, and I saw more “PDA” in my two months in Hong Kong than in all my years in the northeast. And Hong Kong is already quite conservative! As a result, many students are likely underestimating the prevalence of romantic relationships at Cornell. Without public displays of affection, relationships are just less noticeable. The dating situation at Cornell is probably not as dire as we all think!

From our talk on relationships in one of the Rose conference rooms I learned that many people at Cornell feel that they may not have the time to devote to a new relationship. With schoolwork and clubs and jobs, students feel that it can be too much to balance. However, I believe that people will make time for what matters most to them. Those who have time for a relationship see it as an important part of both the college experience and life in general. While it is crucial that all students work hard and study effectively, it is also important to explore the social aspects of life. A relationship is only distracting if it is not one of your top priorities. In my opinion, college is a time to figure out yourself and what you want in life. At Cornell there are thousands of students, and while everyone’s studies are the top priority, it is a great chance to branch out and explore. I do not personally believe that a relationship will seriously distract from your studies as long as you are able to keep a balance in your life. In the long run, I would rather take chances and see where things lead than hold back.

During the Real Talk we had with Andrew, it was quite obvious that we had all gathered for an awkward conversation. I was surprised to see that so many people were attending, however not surprised when Andrew explained how open-ended our conversation would be and no one was willing to raise their hand.

I think it was awkward not because of the topic itself, but because everyone has a different perspective on love and relationships and no one knows or feels comfortable approaching such a topic unless they know from what angle their listeners are approaching from, or if they really don’t care. And in a room as crowded as that, no one would know where to begin.

I decided to take the latter route, seeming that not many people wanted to speak up, because I’ve wondered about the perspectives of others from things like messaging other genders (where’s the line between friendly and flirty) and relationships versus hookups. Our conversation swerved from very direct, very crude honesty to simple questions about perspective. And we seemed to constantly jump from one topic to the other rather than indulge in something, because again- everyone has different perspectives and are things different things. However, one conversation that stuck with me was when a girl brought up how a relationship doesn’t inhibit a person from feeling attraction towards others. “It’s not like once you start dating someone, suddenly everyone else turns ugly”. But that it is the way you choose to stay loyal in a relationship that differentiates your significant other from the others. Overall, I was glad to have attended this event and hear what others had to say, despite our topics being all over the place. But that was only a direct reflection of how complicated this topic can get.

On Saturday I attended a Rose event that revolved around love and dating. To begin, there was a way larger turnout than I expected. I feel that people, especially students at Cornell, have a hard time talking about subjects like love because there is no correct answer. There was definitely awkward silences when the conversation first started out but after a few jokes were cracked, it started getting more comfortable. We discussed what the dating and hook up culture is like here at Cornell. As a transfer student, I was interested in this topic because it’s not something I had heard anyone talk about yet. Other students were able to explain that most students here feel that there is not enough time for intimate relationships. I can understand this because I have already been able to experience what it means to have a completely packed schedule from the early morning to the late night and it is just the first month here. I can see how having a significant other would be difficult to juggle. However, I think that there needs to be a happy medium between school work and nurturing personal relationships (which I will make sure to keep in mind throughout my team here.)

Overall, I enjoyed this event because we were able to get a couple good laughs in while talking about one of my favorite topics! I hope there is a second installation of this event or a similar topic soon.

On Saturday, I filed into one of Rose’s study rooms to talk about love, dating and relationships.  I was a little surprised to see just how many people came to this discussion because love is a bit of a messy topic to talk about. For all the pop culture surrounding love, dating and relationships, you would think that we would all have a clearer idea about what it means and how these sort of relationships work in college.

Talking to the other Rose scholars was particularly illuminating because I don’t usually talk about these things to people I don’t know well. Transfers and students who went to different schools highlighted how different relationship culture is between different schools. They mentioned that as Cornell students are particularly career-oriented and very driven, less people seem to be in relationships. But of course, before one can even be in a relationship, they have to meet potential mates. We talked about how much of meeting people nowadays is electronic. People meet other people through social media and online dating apps. These platforms also provide key insights into how interesting the other person finds you. Virtual flirting by tagging each other in memes or texting someone fairly consistently seems to indicate how attractive someone finds you. The overall consensus was that the virtual dimension of relationships hinders information that would otherwise have been gained from face-to-face interaction, such as body language.

I left the discussion really thinking about how everyone deals with doubts about relationships, dating and love. Because everyone has had different experiences with the topic, it can be easy to feel that other people know more about finding love than you do. But hearing all the other Rose residents talk helped me realize that we’re all just as clueless and that’s okay because it is normal.

This Saturday I was hesitant to attend a “real talk” about love and relationships as we all know this can be a strange topic. At the end of the talk I had gained a lot of good insight and I think everyone felt a little more comfortable talking about something that we all think about but don’t want to voice.

In an environment like Cornell composed of busy and driven people a relationship of whatever nature often seems like a burden or an impossible commitment. I know personally that my days are all planned to the hour and being in a relationship on campus would be another thing to balance in my day-to-day routine. We also reflected on the different relationship and hookup cultures on different college campuses. Having a lot of transfers at the talk we mentioned that here at Cornell there is definitely a hookup culture but there seems to be very few people who commit to relationships. The sometimes overlooked fact that relationships are work, and a lot of it, is probably what prevents many of the students at Cornell from seeking love.

Another important part of our discussion was in a world of technology, how do you pursue someone and how do you know when someone is interested? We often trade in-person interaction for over-the-phone texting and snap chatting. It can be hard to know if your texts are wanted or a burden or if a person is not an adamant texter or they are not interested in talking to you? At the end of the conversation we came to the conclusion that it is very hard to interpret on-line communication and it will usually be easier to interact and interpret interactions with people in person.

Relationships are hard in any setting but especially in such a high pressure, busy environment like Cornell University. While phones and obligations make it hard to navigate the world of love, craving companionship is natural and relationships are rewarding.

Last Saturday, I attended a talk about love and relationships. Walking into the room, I really had no idea what we would end up talking about because love is a topic that is so “out there.” But I ended up gaining some very good insights, things that I may find myself using in the future. The one thing that I definitely took from this conversation is that the core of relationships is human interaction, and in today’s increasingly technological world, what comprises sufficient human interaction is extremely subjective. A question that is constantly plaguing people is “does he/she like me? Like really like me?” How we interpret this is through interactions, but these interactions are not always in person. Often, constantly sending each other snapchats or liking each others old instagram posts is seen as approval of each other. Furthermore, being able to continue a conversation via text is also seen as wanting to take something to the next level. Yet, even in this increasingly technological world, many people will still say that simple gestures such as making a point to touch you when walking closely together, or pointing their body towards you when speaking to each other are signs of liking each other and possibly wanting to take things to the next level. Despite all of these signs, though, people still find themselves not actively pursuing relationships. Why could this be? The biggest reason is the factor of uncertainty. You don’t want to waste your time on something, but you also don’t want to fear that you are missing out on something good. Attempting to navigate this delicate balance is something that almost everyone is plagued with, whether you are in a relationship or not. We are at the time in our lives where we can make our careers, but we are also at that point where we have the highest chances of meeting new people. Because of this, I think that it is extremely important that we as college students come to terms with the fact that love is a gamble, but it is worth taking the risk in order to potentially gain a life-long partner. And if it doesn’t work out, you gain a set of memories and learning experiences that will help you pursue something even better in the future.

Today’s table talk, led by our SA Andrew, is a very interesting talk. Dating is a topic that plays a big role in college life, yet we normally wouldn’t discuss in a big group conversation. Andrew did a great job in leading us towards a fun conversation, knowing other people’s thoughts, and discussing the questions that we have.

We also had a faculty member, who was experienced in the field of love relationships, dating, and college students’ life. What surprised me most is how similar of thoughts other people in the Cornell community to mine. We are all seeking for a romantic relationship, yet not able to commit in time or energy, since we are in a very competitive and full-filled environment at Cornell, where everyone has their goals and plans, that makes the opportunity cost of spending time on a relationship too high for many of us to step into. However, on the other hand, dating, love, romance are indispensable part in our lives, and they are worthy for us to explore and learn through our lives. We always want to be unique and we are going to spend most of our lives to prove that we are. And the magic part of love and relationship, is that in another person’s eyes he/she sees you, and at that moment you are special. This is a basic psychological need in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and irresistible for human beings. Also, I really like the metaphor that one of the people at this talk pointed out, that everyone is as a boat in the ocean, where it would be nice to have someone to paddle with you, sharing the view alone the journey with you.

It’s an interesting conversation overall, and I really enjoyed it.