43 CommentsThere’s something in the air, for Columbia’s campus just got a bit cuter. Maybe it’s the relief from midterms, maybe it’s the nippy weather, or maybe it’s simply holiday cheer.
Two wistful 30-something bros are walking down College Walk on a crisp, fall day.
Bro one: “Man, this would be such a great place to fall in love.”
Bro two, in solemn agreement: “Yeah. College.”
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- Columbia workers make College Walk what it is:
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- A beautiful, festive place
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43 Comments
@shrinking violet i love your poem. It’s so sweet. You know, when I was younger, I thought Pablo Neruda was some sort of magical fantasy hero like Zorro. I created a whole story for him, I pretended he saved all of Mexico from being conquered by the British empire, I was such a crazy kid.
@but but but love rules Finale
BY PABLO NERUDA
Matilde, years or days
sleeping, feverish,
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,
bleeding true blood,
perhaps I awaken
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.
And then, these journeys
and my sea of renewal:
your head on the pillow,
your hands floating
in the light, in my light,
over my earth.
It was beautiful to live
when you lived.
The world is bluer and of the earth
at night, when I sleep
enormous, within your small hands.
@but but but love rules WOW bwog ruined the line breaks…cool prose poem though
@Alum who reads bwog Problem: Many of you are spending precious time posting online about not having a significant other. Stop. Just, please, stop. Go meet friends.
Rhetorical question and answer: Can’t you all find things to do without having a significant other? There’s so much stuff to do on campus. Newsflash: after you graduate, you will be surrounded by coworkers – not friends. Spend time with your friends now, then if you want to settle down and avoid people after college, ok – find a significant other and do that.
Advice: Spend your time in college doing the things you love or trying new things to see if you’ll love them. You will have a good time, even if you don’t meet the love of your college-life.
Sources: My time in college (half with a girlfriend, which was ok, half without a girlfriend, which was great).
Required “back in my day”: This could all be solved by going to campo.
@Shows how much you know Campo isn’t a thing anymore.
@l'unica cosa che vorrei 21-year-old male international student here.
I’m alone. I’ve been looking for someone to be with for 2 1/2 years. I’ve come up against obstacles to dating that I never had to deal with back home, and though I’ve learned to deal with them, the fact of the matter is that human contact of any sort at this school tends to be fundamentally empty. If you’re reasonably well-groomed and persistent, there is always going to be someone willing to sleep with you after a few drinks at one of the bars around campus, but we all know that sort of contact is more troubling than comforting.
It’s gotten to the point where someone recently thought it’d be a good idea to create a Facebook avatar called ‘Columbia Compliments’ in order to anonymously send compliments to people you know in order to make them feel better. If this does not speak VOLUMES about people’s general lack of social commitment towards people they already know, I don’t know what does.
We don’t exist to each other. Forget about finding someone.
@MK I am sorry that you feel that way, but I disagree. What Columbia Compliments does, in my mind, is reflect what you’ve done for the community at large, because the inherent anonymity means the compliment could have come from anyone. Seeing that your commitment to relationships has paid off, and that you have actually helped at least one person out (and therefore, in a small or big way, contributed to the community), is very different from connecting with people on individual bases. I cherish my friends greatly, and I let them know it and they let me know it. However, even though I know that I connect with them and with the community around me, it’s still reassuring to hear that I really have made a difference in the lives of my fellow Columbians. Columbia Compliments isn’t the only way that Columbians contribute to the community and connect with each other, but it’s a small way of letting each other know that those small kindnesses and contributions do not go unnoticed or unappreciated. That’s what I think, at least.
@Just another person I like the Columbia Compliments, but I think a major problem with it is that it publicizes the compliments. If they sent it via message, it would be so much more meaningful and less attention-whory/status-mongering.
@are you cute? i might know someone who’s interested
@Senior Girl I’m in love…with a beautiful, wonderful, brilliant boy who has a new girlfriend he loves very much. </3
@Anonymous ugh me too :(
@Ace The first week i came to Columbia, I knew the deal. I called my mom and said forget me having a boyfriend/dating, it’s not happening here, She thought I was crazy but I didn’t bother to delude myself.
@Anonymous You must be hanging out in all the wrong places and not getting involved.
@Rihanna We found love in a hopeless place.
@Anonymous @Rihanna: NYU?
@CC Senior CC guy here. I am in love with my gf at Barnard! We are having the best college experience I could ever imagine.
Please, try to open-up and give dating and love a chance. Don’t be negative. Don’t over analyse the situation.
There is so much happiness, and yes, great sweet sex just waiting for you if you give love a chance.
@CC '13 analyse with an ‘s’… hmmm…
@Anonymous Look it up. YHou are not as smart as you think!
@optimist I love Columbia! and my boyfriend!
@Anonymous I love your boyfriend too!
@hedonito Let’s all love our boyfriend !
@Anonymous Columbia is the best at Christmas!
@I wish... …I could fall in love here :.. I’ve been single for the 2.5 years I’ve been at Columbia. I am an independent person who doesn’t *need* a relationship, and I have never had a problem with being single, nor do I think it is shameful to be so for a long period of time. However, every now and then I see a couple who is really in love and I think to myself: “Damn…I wish I had that.” The vast majority of my Columbia friends have also been single for all or most of the time they’ve been here as well, and the ones who aren’t are in long-distance relationships with people from other schools. I know very, very few actual intra-Columbia couples (and even fewer GOOD ones, for that matter).
One of the main problems is that the general atmosphere just isn’t conducive to real dating. There have been quite a few times where I start getting a crush on a guy and then, after a little while, I literally think to myself “Hmm…why should I even try…what are the chances that this will actually be something good?” In other words, I basically am thinking “Why should I even bother?” I guess there are SO few examples of people in good relationships here that I just don’t think that my chances of being part of the tiny % that do have an incredible relationship here are very high. So I might as well not “waste my time” to begin with. So I never really try to start anything with any of the guys I am interested in. This is the totally wrong way to approach relationships and love and life in general, but I feel like it’s the approach that a lot of people take here. I understand this is sort of self-defeating logic, but I think it’s human, and humans aren’t perfect. There have been a handful of guys here who I am positive really liked me (some of them even told me directly), but who never really ended up making any sort of move at all. The general attitude is that dating someone would be “nice,” but few people can be bothered to actually put in the effort (and put themselves out there) to make something happen, especially when we have so many other things to worry about (midterms! internships! friends!).
I LOVE Columbia, and I am not complaining specifically about the Columbia atmosphere, per say, since I think this is more of a general problem in college. Just my random (tired) thoughts while procrastinating at 2 a.m. instead of studying for my midterm tomorrow.
@I thought... That my whole “cost-benefit analysis” of dating was just me being hyperrational, but your comment indicates to me that this must be at least somewhat common, even among women. This gives me hope that we can both mutually decide that it’s not worth it to date each other. Or at least that I’m not crazy.
@Senior Guy If anyone has a right to be jaded it’s me; I’ve been single all 3+ years so far, despite never wanting to be (that’s probably why I’ve been single, i.e. not wanting to be). I fall into the same boat as you sometimes. Every time some girl I went on a date with doesn’t call me back for a second one… fuck, every time a girl in Butler doesn’t even smile back at me; it gets depressing fast, I know. Sometimes I do let it get to me.
But not always. Sometimes, most of the time, I try to hang on to that deluded bit of hope that she’s out there and I just haven’t met her yet. Every time it rains, I look for a girl with a yellow umbrella. Every time I walk down the street, across 116’th and college walk, around the halls in Butler, wherever, a little part of me is looking at passing girls’ eyes to try and catch that spark that I still believe, however deludedly, is somewhere out there. I know the social consensus is against serendipity, love at first sight, etc., and maybe that makes me an idiot, but I’d rather be foolish and hopeful than cynical and right.
@Senior Guy Also, “I wish”, want to grab a coffee in Butler sometime?
@you're looking for the wrong umbrella Start looking for a girl under a red umbrella. I’m out there, waiting for you.
@Senior Guy I will ask every girl I see with a red umbrella for the next few weeks if they are “the girl with the red umbrella. I’m completely serious. I’ll even tell you my name (“Michael”, I’m sure Bwog can verify. If you visibly carry a red umbrella around campus, I will find you. I’ll be looking all the time.
Michael
@Senior Guy Damn, missed a quotation mark. So close.
@this will be fun to watch unfold ill be watching this spot with popcorn and a box of tissue
@CC '13 i hope it rains…
@How I met your mother LOVE ME, TED MOSBY
@senior well i was in love and i just found out he kissed someone else while i was away on summer break.
so this guy who i’ve been with for 8 months, who i destroyed myself missing for three months, who claimed to love me far more emphatically than i ever did, ruined it for a kiss. he says.
I’d much rather have spent all this time invested in something else.
like my homework.
@Sally You’re going to think I’m joking. I’m not. Consider datemyschool.com (they really should pay me for this). I’m not saying there aren’t creepy guys there, because there are, but there are also really great guys who feel EXACTLY like you do. When I made my account, I felt like I looked so desperate. I met my boyfriend on date my school, and I couldn’t be happier. He’s my best friend, and I love him very much. WE are the disgustingly cute couple you see on campus. Maybe you will be too. Give it a try.
@Pls Can I have “bro one”‘s name, because I am seriously doing college wrong. Where’s my love?
@Anonymous im pretty sure im not attracitve. i get turned down by girls the majority of the time. what do I do? I’m getting really horny and I havent had sex in like 2.5 months….
@girlie that’s so cute!!!!!!!!!!!! Bromance is the cutest ever!!!!!!
@love does not exist here
@Taylor Swift I didn’t go to college :(
@xxx this just makes me sad, like I’m doing college wrong.
@xoxo every minute passing is a chance to change that!
@love? trololol wtf, bwog. don’t be foolish. all college love is ultimately pointless and divorced of any true meaning, in so far as it will proceed to nothingness. love itself is anathema to human nature, and is a plague to the heart. but rejoice, peers: mindless heartless sex exists in its stead.
also maybe I’m jaded.
@WOMAN Love…? What’s that?