Looking for Companionship - By Caitlin Prendergast and JT Emperado - Personal - http://maxpages.com/chinaman/Looking_for

Welcome to the "Point and My Point" section of the site. Here, I will have stolen someone else's article, cut it, paste it on here, then analyzed it myself. Yeah, it's slightly shady, but sometimes in order to get a quality point across, you need to jump all over someone else's first.....

The following article is from Caitlin Prendergast. I have no idea who this girl is cept that she's the "Activities editor and monthly columnist for The Daily Eastern News" (it's Eastern's college newspaper). So enjoy the article, and enjoy what I have to say about it.

POINT
Thursday, September 26, 2002
By Caitlin Prendergast of The Eastern Daily News Opinion column.

As I survey the grounds of this university, I see what appears to be a major male to female ratio dilemma.
In the two years I've been here, I have noticed more and more there is a large number of single women at Eastern. At the Food Court, in the Rec Center and even at the bars it always seems as if women outnumber men by a landslide.
The ratio in my classes is even more astounding.
Everyone can relate to that anticipation of starting a new semester and walking into a classroom for the first time, hoping to look around the room and find your soul mate among the Abercrombie T-shirts and greek letters.
Nothing is more disappointing to me than walking into a classroom full of women. No dating potential there.
So, where have all the cowboys gone?
Statistics prove there are men on this campus. Recent enrollement figures show that of the 11,163 students at Eastern, 4,630 are men.
Although there are nearly 2,000 more women than men on campus, conceivably, it should not be that hard to find a date.
Sadly, I have female friends in their 20s who have never even been on a date. For straight, single, sexually-frustrated women, this campus lacks options. Maybe the problem with guys is not the quantity, but quality as well.
When I go out with my girls, I never get approached by members of the opposite sex, unless they're my friends. I can't recall a strange male ever opening up a door, offering to buy me a drink or making an effort to engage me in stimulating conversation.
I'm beginning to think chivalry really is dead and buried.
The trouble is not just from as female perspective, either I've heard many straight, single, sexually frustrated men claim they have a better chance of picking up a semi-truck than an eligible bachelorette at this school, even though they admit campus is crawling with "hot chicks".
I realize a student's evaluation of his or her college experience should not be based on how many notches are left on the old bed post, but I never expected college to be like this.
College is where people meet and fall in love so they can get married and enjoy the quintessential yuppie lifestyle. At least, this is what I thought.
I had these romantic notions of meeting my Prince Charming here. Perhaps he would be sitting under a tree in the South Quad, and we would one day magically meet amidst the smell of freshly laid asphalt and the blare of a dozen jackhammers.
My soul mate would be the type of man who would read my Shakespeare in bed and write me endless love letters. We would share intimate dinners at El Rancherito...it would be the perfect Charleston love affair.
And then I woke up.
I'm tired of dreaming about meeting someone at this school, and I can't understand why it's so difficult.
Universities are intended to be diverse places full of interesting people of both sexes.
Every person on this campus should be granted at least one date during their college years.

MY POINT
By JT Emperado of "The Essential".

Now don't get me wrong. I've only been here a month. I haven't met, seen, or done everything that Eastern has to offer. But I'd like to think I've made a few good observations of my own.
Yes, Eastern definitely has more females than males. But don't you think that you should have taken that into account before you came here?
I know many guys in the world who have gone to universities based on the male to female ratio. I'll admit it, I have at one time considered the quality of a university based on the male to female ratio. But not for the reason that you would think. I mean, aren't women supposed to be smarter than men? You'd figure the women would know where the quality universities are.
And by no means is Eastern Illinois University in Charleston Illinois a "quality university". No offense, but come on...look at the place.
But back to My Point.
Caitlin's been here a couple of years, yet she's just now figuring out that you absolutely cannot find the love of your life here. Any half-intelligent human being could have figured that out as soon as they went to orientation the first time, or heard all the oh-so-interesting stories about this place.
Yes. I agree that that college is a place "where people can meet and fall in love so they can get married and enjoy the quintessential lifestyle".
But I doubt that this college falls under that catagory. (And probably any other "party" school in the world.)
At Eastern, Prince Charming won't be sitting under a tree in the South Quad...He'll be passed out on top of the toilet bowl at an after hours party on 4th street.
At Eastern, you're not going to magically meet your Prince Charming...You're going to DRUNKENLY meet your Prince Charming.
At Eastern, your soul mate won't be the type of man who read you Shakespeare in bed...He'll be the type of man who will show off for you by drinking 10 40s of King Cobra in under 1 hour.
At Eastern, your soul mate won't be the type of man who writes you endless love letters...He'll be the type of man who want to take and endless amount of naked picures of you and show them to all his friends.
At Eastern, you and your soul mate won't share an intimate dinner at El Rancherito...Nevermind. You will. My bad.
So what kind of man are you looking for anyway? Alright, I'm sure there are a few "good guys" buried out here somewhere amongst the dead grass and wasted food scraps. But those guys probably aren't coming out of hiding any time soon. They're entirely too scared and intimidated of the "hot chicks" and are entirely too scared and intimidated of their competition: drunken, buff, assholic frat boys.
Next time you dream of meeting your Prince Charming, consider where you want to meet him first. Environment is a good indicator of the quality of persons available. Hell, I could go into massive detail about how raunchy and uninteresting the women at Eastern are, but I'm saving that for another article.
So think before you write your opinion, Caitlin Prendergast.
But more importantly, think before you complain, Caitlin Prendergast.

ItsOnlyJT@aol.com

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