By a restless NYU exchange student
Illustrated by Laura Liu
Dating in the city is not for the weak. After experiencing dating life as a university student in two of the biggest cities in the world – New York City and London – I have come to my favourite student publication with reflections on both. In NYC, every waking moment is an opportunity to find your next situationship – whether that is casually catching the eye of the cute volleyball player in Central Park or grabbing a coffee with the tall guy in your astronomy class. London, on the other hand, is a city of politeness and reading between the lines – you wouldn’t know if you were on a date or just having a polite conversation over a pint. If flirting were an art, the Brits have created the minimalist movement. My first month in NYC has been more eventful than my entire last year in London, feeling like a fish out of water pursued by every man who was too bold for his own good.
In the city that never sleeps, American men are just as restless, always looking to buy you your next drink. With pockets as deep as my trust issues, they are seemingly willing to empty their entire trust funds to take you out on a nice sushi date or charm you on their Upper East Side rooftops and dive bars. And damn does it work. Though some British men are capable of doing just the same, they prefer to be a lot more casual on their dates, with a cute coffee or one drink and calling it a day. From the consensus of the people around me, Brits are not willing to inconvenience themselves and go out of their way to treat you; Americans, on the other hand, very much are. The difference does not lie in material wealth, but rather in generosity.
The nature of American colleges enables their boldness in flirtation, with frat parties forcing brothers to invite girls as their dates and nights like Champagne and Shackles’ forcing you to be zip-tied to the cute engineer junior. And being at NYU doesn’t even scratch the surface of what traditional colleges like ‘Bama’ have to offer. American college students are experiencing ‘exposure therapy’ to flirting on a daily basis, shaping a bold bunch of serial flirters.
To give my home uni its credit, LSE is not without its fun, contrary to what the other unis may think of us. On the topic of dating, more people find their dates through friends of friends, casual pub nights out, and drunkenly flirting on a Sway night out. People are more reserved, focused on internships, and meeting someone happens once in a blue moon. But when you do, it’s unexpected and all the more exciting.
Maybe it’s the element of studying abroad that makes me take on more opportunities than I usually would – after all, my grades do not count towards my degree, so why not indulge in some reckless dating? At the end of the day, dating is what you make of it, and being in a certain country doesn’t mean you’ll automatically meet the right man. In the meantime, I will be sitting in my tiny NYU dorm room, decoding my rooftop boy’s “let’s do it again soon” text with my roommates.
