Where’s the Love?
CCNY is experiencing a "single ladies" phenomenon - and it has nothing to do with Beyoncé. During February, the month of love, women on campus are asking, "where is my love?"This phenomenon is not just limited to CCNY. At colleges and universities throughout the country, women outnumber men, which adds up to lonely nights for many single ladies. And New York isn't the best city for a woman to find a relationship. According to Richard Florida, an author and researcher who studies demographic trends, "In the greater New York area, single women outnumber single men by more than 210,000."At City College, undergraduate women outnumber men 52 to 48 percent. But many female undergrads wonder if more than just statistics account for the large number of loveless ladies. Are college students looking in the wrong places? Do college women intimidate college men? Or do they just not know how to capture the interest of a college man? Or, as both men and women believe, relationships have to take a back seat in the lives of busy students.Junior Ashley Poullard speaks for many single CCNY women. "Indeed, I have trouble finding a guy to date on campus," she says. Having dated not even one guy from campus, she doesn't expect to find her future husband here.Senior Chanel Green blames schoolwork, jobs and commuting rather than a "man shortage." She says she hasn't dated anyone at CCNY because she hasn't had time. "School comes first; relationships can wait," she says.Jason Mitchell, a junior at CCNY, speaks for many guys who don't want dating to get in the way of schoolwork. "Relationships can become distractions and interfere with classes," says Mitchell, who has yet to have a CCNY girlfriend.He also worries about what happens when an on-campus relationship sours. "If things go bad, you don't want to have to see that person everyday," he says.Green agrees. "Many college men and women who are good friends fear departing from a platonic relationship," she says.Melissa Tevez, a single senior at CCNY, says unattached women shouldn't take the inability to find love personally. "Genuine interest will arise when there is constant exposure, which may be hard to attain at a commuter school like CCNY where there is lack of proximity and exposure to the person of interest," she says. "I don't think it has anything to do with the ladies or men, but with the circumstances."
