In an ideal world, all Cornellians would fall in love.
Our world, of course, is far from ideal. While the Hopeless Romantic is lauded by society for spending their time pursuing impractical, unrequited love, we're forced to be pragmatists – carefully rationing our free time into colorful slots on a Google calendar to survive.
I suppose when it all boils down, love is a game of numbers: the more painful first dates you endure, the greater your chances of – hopefully – finding a match. However, the odds are certainly not in our favor. The same can unfortunately be said about finding an internship, a freshman roommate, or getting accepted into a competitive finance club – forgive me for making me such demoralizing comparisons.
There is perhaps no group who better understands this reality than a particular campus archetype I’ve termed the “coffee chatter,” arguably our campus’s most notorious serial daters – I mean, networkers. The coffee chatter yearns to be a perfect match… for any one of Cornell’s premier student organizations. Day and night, they are on an inexhaustive search for connection – preferably on LinkedIn or CULinks, and as many as humanly possible.
The coffee chat itself is merely their mode of business. Quick, impersonal and transactional by nature, coffee chats are perhaps as unromantic as an interaction with your bank teller. And yet, the entire ritual functions ironically like a (terrible) first date. Your potential match may be clutching a coffee cup and a resume instead of a bouquet, but a rose by any other name is still reminiscent of the quiet desperation of a first date. Let’s compare :
1. They asked you out… sort of. This special someone made a space in their G-cal just for you – and they claim romance is dead? That invite awaiting an RSVP in your inbox might be sweeter than any heart-shaped box of CVS chocolates you’ll be receiving this Valentine’s Day.
2. You did your research. You may have lightly stalked their social media profiles, specifically their LinkedIn. How else would you learn the name of their high school, what European city they traveled to study abroad, and most importantly, what bank they interned with last summer? Not to worry about being caught – Incognito mode remains safely on. They’ll never guess it was you behind that elusive 2 a.m. profile view.
3. You're dressed to impress. Your white collared shirt was ironed to a starchy crisp. Your black blazer and matching pants, meticulously lint-rolled and tailored to perfection – just like your cover letter.
4. You're anxious for it to go well. Your palms are immediately sweaty upon arrival. Your stomach is wound in painful knots – perhaps you should skip the coffee. You mentally rehearse topics of conversation in your head to come off as friendly, but not overly invested. You debate on commenting on the weather – will we ever see the sun in Ithaca before April? You decide against it – too boring.
5. You follow up. To be polite, you send a quick email nearly identical to the classic, post-date text. Although your message didn’t quite read, “I had a great time, hope to see you soon!” you may as well have added a heart before your signature. Seriously, you're practically blushing through the screen.
All teasing aside, you have to admire the coffee chatter’s perseverance – they willingly choose to endure torturous small talk, navigate tense first impressions, and waste precious BRB’s on half-drunk coffees in pursuit of a single yes. Their efforts are commendable, if not courageous. In this sense, I’d go so far as to argue that the seasoned coffee chatter is not so different from the avid dating app user. We have to hand it to them – at least they're trying.
Of course, it’s not always a perfect match they crave, but the adrenaline rush of a successful social climb. It’s no secret that the Ivy League tends to attract ambitious personalities, often paired with a slight fixation with prestige – as you all know, this is putting it quite generously. For some Cornellian’s, the higher the barriers of entry to an organization, the more enticing the challenge. Upon this consideration, is it really so shocking that this winner-takes-all approach to building our professional circles might be negatively informing our ability to forge romantic connections?
Perhaps we’re all a bit more machiavellian than we’ve let on, and it is precisely for this reason that we’ve begun to witness a rise in resistance to “coffee chat culture” on campus – we no longer want our interactions to feel like a means to an end. As a tsunami of recruitment flyers, info sessions and application due date reminders overwhelm your inboxes, advertisements for “anti-coffee chats” are a liferaft of sorts, ideal for anxious freshmen who simply want to ride out the wave.
I’m a personal supporter of this movement. In this season of love – and club recruitment – we are constantly at risk of rejection. But we must remember that our potential for success is just as high when we choose to hold the door open for others, making room for genuine connections to thrive. You never know, Cornellians – a healthy dose of romantic optimism might do us all some good.
Katelyn Halverson is a sophomore in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be reached at kh874@cornell.edu.
