Although I haven’t spent enough time in college to proclaim that I am an expert about all there is to know about the prevalent social culture, I think we can all agree that something isn’t right about college relationships. Although it definitely does not pertain to everyone, more often than not, it seems that guys treat women like objects or prizes and girls treat guys as a means to climb the social ladder. It seems ridiculous to me that we are all in college to better ourselves and have a meaningful experience, yet we treat each other like dirt for personal gain. Before you stop reading and think to yourself, “this guy is a pretentious a**hole,” know that a large amount of what I am going to say is inspired from the disappointment I have in myself for not treating girls the way my mother taught me to treat all people alike: with respect, empathy, and compassion. We can all improve the way we treat one another, especially when it comes to the relationship between boys and girls in college.

1. Party Culture.

First and foremost, it is pretty terrible to treat parties as a way to forget about consequences and prey on girls’ lack of sober reasoning and judgment as a means to get in their pants. If you really boil down party culture, it comes down to this, “Hey, come over so we can drink, ignore all our awkward tendencies, dance and hopefully make out if it’s dark enough!” Parties were designed to bring people together to share conversation and get to know new people. It’s difficult to get to know one another if the music overrides any potential conversation, guys’ only motivation is finding a cute girl to dance and hook-up with and girls’ main motivation is snagging free booze and taking pictures for Instagram to make the night seem like a huge success. Obviously, not everyone is guilty of these social crimes, but the vast majority of those taking part in party culture definitely are or have been. Both boys and girls are guilty of perpetuating a broken party culture that nurtures unhealthy human interaction.

2. Lack of Day Dates.

“Whatever happened to dates?” said every college girl ever. Let’s be honest, formal dates are definitely on the verge of extinction, but more than that, what happened to lunch dates? Or walks in the park? I’ll tell you what happened: it has become so easy and automatic to avoid awkward human interaction that we leave the casual aspects of relationships to Snapchat and texting, and we wait until nighttime to actually go out and interact, usually in groups at that. It is very easy to blame this on guys and say, “He never wants to hang out outside of parties and groups… obviously he only wants to hook up with me.” Although there may be some truth to this, if boys and girls alike weren’t so awkward about interacting sober in daylight, then this wouldn’t be such an issue. If you like someone, see if they want to hang out or get lunch, it is really that simple.

3. Drunk Texting.

I’ll keep this one short because it is really that simple. We’ve all done it and we have all woken up in the morning and said, “Well, that was an extremely poor decision.” Self-control is not a quality; it is a practice. This was the first lesson I learned in college: if you want to treat people with more respect and make better decisions in general, it is a practice with no exceptions. There is no room for, “It wouldn’t hurt this once,” or “What’s the worst that could happen.” We all know drunk texting is an objectifying thing to do and it has always done more harm than good, and that will never change.

4. If you refuse to put a title on your relationship, you are probably being an a**.

This is not always true; I fully acknowledge that there are certainly times in which it would be a better idea to keep a romantic relationships casual, but more often than not, refusing to put a title on a relationship is a sign of fear of commitment and responsibility, or a sign that you aren’t interested at all and you are only in it for the sex. Oh boy! Sex! What a perfect segue into my next argument.

5. What is the difference between sex and really good sandwich?

Nothing apparently. Bear with me. You’re hungry, and the idea of a really good sandwich comes to mind so you do all in your power to get that sandwich. You show your friends a picture of the sandwich you ate last night and it was amazing. An eight at least. Sound familiar? Okay, very far fetched I admit, but the idea is still there. Sex has extremely powerful and possibly traumatic effects on the brain, yet it is treated like just something you enjoy for one instance and then forget about. It seems obvious, but I might as well reiterate: sex is not a sandwich.