Columnist: Clemence Bernard

Editor-in-Chief: Yasmin Alameddine

Romance, rather Cornell students’ approach to romance, is a puzzling concept I have failed to understand so far in my three years at Cornell.

Funnily enough, the word romance stems from a Middle English word that refers to the “use of the vernacular language in a composition.” What this (rather nerdy) piece of information tells us is that perhaps Cornellians have stuck to the traditional definition of romance, rather than testing out the environment, or using contextual cues to make sure a romantic gesture is appropriate. Here is a real life example:

Thursday night, 1:30 A.M. House Party.

“Hi. What’s up? Hey, let’s keep it real. So, guess what?” he said as he scooted next to me with a confident smile.

“Yes?” I answered, reciprocating a confused smile. He seemed nice enough, pretty cute even…

“So, I saw you at the gym on Thursday and was like: WHO is that girl? Like, seriously, check out that booty. I mean, I never seen you before girl, I was like, where’d she come from.”

Now my cheeks start to burn, a painfully uncomfortable laugh comes out of my mouth and I look at him to check if he is joking.

Apparently, he is not joking. He goes on: “If they had a bootylicious Olympics, you’d have a high medal count.”

I can’t even force a laugh, I am in shock. I look around the room to find a friend standing close by. I step on her foot to signal an emergency, she nods understandingly. My brand new acquaintance does not notice this exchange, and goes on to describe what he thinks of my “booty” –oh dear God. My friend jumps in the conversation, and I excuse myself to “grab a drink of water”.

After his third attempt at striking a conversation, I am asked if I want to get to “know him more”. That’ll be no, thank you very much.

There are times where I doubt the true worth of an Ivy League education. This time was very much one of them. If we learn anything over the four years of our undergraduate degree, let us only hope that it is reflected in the quality of our pick-up lines (or preferably lack of pick up lines), and our acknowledgement of people as people instead of anything else that requires the use of the word “bootylicious”.

 Still, I can look back at this moment and laugh now. So thank you Cornell for the entertainment, you keep surprising me. Not sure I’ll be going to the gym anytime soon though.