As a good friend and colleague of mine once said, “You gotta look outside of The New School.” This is of particular irony, as said friend and colleague is currently dating a New School alumnus. They live together, and they’re also my roommates. I am a benevolent third wheel, a resident in a home abound with love in all corners except one — my own bedroom.
Most young men who come to The New School make much of the female-to-male ratio; at last count, it is roughly at a 70-30 percent split, respectively, across all divisions. Such figures can often inspire excitement and anticipation among those of us who daydreamed about coming to New York to study our discipline, explore all that this bustling city has to offer, and in the process meet that beautiful, intelligent girl who loves Scorsese films, enjoys a good single malt and thinks reading is sexy. By the law of averages, the possibility of finding such a person — or, at the very least, someone who digs you for you — would appear more than likely for us, the gender minority of The New School.
And then you get here and you realize, particularly in my own experience at Lang, that people are pretty much the same wherever you go. They have their own lives and their own interests, and the mere fact that the setting has changed and the clothes are cooler and the discussions are more esoteric doesn’t change the reality that getting to know someone — and convincing them that you’re worth getting to know — is an exercise in futility most of the time. Account for our university’s lack of any centralized area for students to gather and meet, as well as our lukewarm party scene, and it’s easy to find yourself wondering where all those Parsons girls go once class is out.
Now, if you’re beginning to suspect that your writer is full of shit, you may be right. There is an astronomically high likelihood that your romantic experience at The New School has been more fruitful than mine. I’m too easily intimidated by the opposite sex to approach the stylish brunette in the courtyard, and I probably wasn’t invited to that great party off the Morgan stop last weekend. Everything I’m complaining about is ultimately under my own control, and I have nobody but myself to blame for my gripes and dissatisfactions. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m sitting here in said bedroom on a Saturday night, drafting this up over a Budweiser tallboy while my roommates are huddled in the living room, enjoying a movie with wine and popcorn — a combination that shouldn’t work in theory, but does in practice, especially when you’re sharing the moment with a significant other. Woe is me? Fuck you.
But I digress. As I said, people are pretty much the same wherever you go, which brings me back to our university’s peculiar case study in the law of averages. The truth is, I know a number of guys at The New School who have found success in both matters of the heart and the bedroom (as though they aren’t inextricably linked), and they’ve done so through the same devices that always work in these situations: confidence, conversation and a fair dose of good looks. For them, it doesn’t matter whether women comprise 90 percent of The New School’s student body, or 10 percent — they’re going to get what they want. As such, the figures don’t matter much for the likes of me, either — as long as I continue to carry around my desperation like a billboard, recoil from initiating any stimulating conversation whatsoever, and look like I woke up in a bar that morning (and I may very well have), I’m going to continue spending my Saturday nights writing this shit, instead of having dinner and cocktails with said Dream Girl, unattainable object that she is.
Not that I don’t enjoy entertaining you with this twisted concept for a column. I feel better already, actually, and I hope you take it for what it is — my semi-serious, always humorous attempt at reconciling myself with the complex realities of finding romance and intimacy in this great city of ours.
Also, most of the guys who do end up cornering the market at The New School are either politically misguided, complete assholes, or both, for the record.
Rey Mashayekhi is News Editor of The New School Free Press and a two-time Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award winner. He enjoys single-malt scotch, long walks through the West Village, and a good foreign film. You can read “Fifty Shades of Rey,” his column on the ever-elusive quest for romance and intimacy in New York City, every month in the Free Press and online at newschoolfreepress.com.
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People like Rey are the reason I will never try to date within TNS.
lol Rey
Rey is that u?
for the editors/faculty specifically:
not only is this column sexist. it is
1. horrendously written
2. relevant to maybe 4 people
3. completely lacking of any sort of original opinion/idea/thought
4. whiny and boring and bitter: “Also, most of the guys who do end up cornering the market at The New School are either politically misguided, complete assholes, or both, for the record.” (who can ever know this stop making general stupid fucking claims. I realize this is an opinion column and this is one person’s opinion but what is this opinion based on? I’d really like to know. What is the criteria for being “politically misguided”, author? What is the criteria for being a “complete asshole”? Because in my opinion, you stand as an example of both.)
5. not at all entertaining, as it so claims to be. The only entertaining part is when I get to read it and make fun of it and criticise it which I realize in turn makes me not much better than the author himself. However if you give him a space in your paper in which to belittle and objectify other human beings why not give everyone that same space? Why not publish my diary entries about how women (or men) suck and give it a “clever” title and call it an op-ed piece? This isn’t a “twisted concept” for a column. It’s hardly a new concept at all. The real disgrace is not so much upon the author for having these feelings, but upon the editors for irresponsibly letting them be published.
I srsly can’t believe ur editors let this pass thru
“that people are pretty much the same wherever you go.”
i pity you more than anything
1 of the reasons u thought the New School was an exciting place to study was bc of the male 2 female ratio?
4 real though?
Rarely should u begin a piece with “As”
u r the worst
u r the worst
u r the worst
u r the worst
A PLAGUE ON YOUR HOUSE FREE PRESS
FOR PUBLISHING
THESE COLUMNS
I read this article just because of how gross your most recent sexism, rape- dripping article was.
“I’m going to continue spending my Saturday nights writing this shit, instead of having dinner and cocktails with said Dream Girl, unattainable object that she is.”
“unattainable object that she is”
“object that she is”
“object”
REALLY WOOPS I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE NEW SCHOOL
Nice article. Keep it up.
Lol, fempire…
Aww poor baby. Don’t listen to that stuck up fempire, I think this is lovely. You’re funny, witty, a good writer, and I’m sure you’ll find your girl. Who knows, maybe you already have 😉
Hey, this is really sad.
You’re kind of a sexist douche, and maybe you would have more luck with women if you stopped whining online and asked a girl out like a real person.
What’s worse is how poorly written this is.