Pepperdine students say they are tired of the way dating does — or more often doesn’t — happen at Pepperdine.
“There is no such thing as casual dating at Pepperdine … yet,” junior religion major Joel Foster said.
Foster is a self-proclaimed “casual dating entrepreneur” and one of the many students at Pepperdine University who have made it their goal to bring dating to campus culture. He and others said they disliked Pepperdine’s “all-or-nothing” dating culture.
“If you’re not looking for a serious lifelong commitment, dating really isn’t that fun,” Foster said. “There are so many additional pressures.”
Both students and staff attribute the dating culture of Pepperdine to the predominant Christian environment of the school and the small size of the student body. Some cited the study abroad program that Pepperdine offers their students as another hindrance on early dating.
An informal survey of 100 students through SurveyMonkey found that about 92 percent of students surveyed think that dating differs at Pepperdine from other universities. Only 38 percent of students surveyed have ever been on a date while at Pepperdine.
In 11 different interviews with Pepperdine students across all four years, the consensus was clear: There is a distinct desire to bring dating to campus.
Senior Spanish major Katrina Warme said she thinks the main reason the dating culture continues to differ from that of other universities is due to students keeping that idea alive.
“We perpetuate it by saying that if people go on one date then it is serious and that’s sad,” Warme said.
At small schools like Pepperdine, it is rare to find people going on dates just to get to know each other. Foster said people either date to get married or they don’t date at all.
Junior media production major Peter Jacob said he notices the lack of middle ground between meeting new people and serious relationships.
“No one dates for two months — it’s always for like a year,” Jacob said. “‘Ring by spring’ is definitely a reality.”
The dualism between serious relationships or no relationships at all is a common theme among students.
“This has been the stigma for decades; it’s nothing new,” Relationship IQ Director Hannah Parmelee said.
“The hype around the word ‘dating’ scares people and puts pressure on people about what it means to go on a date,” Parmelee continued. “The friend circles are deeper and richer here because you see each other so often, so there’s less anonymity. If you do start dating somebody then you’ll see them around and you’ll have mutual friends, but at other schools you can hide more easily.”
She explained that since Pepperdine is such a small community, a big part of what scares students is it is difficult to keep dating private. It appears that everyone knows who is dating who, and then others will make it into something that it isn’t. The definition of dating has shifted, so that it no longer includes getting to know someone, but automatically indicates a relationship, Parmelee said.
The average student at Pepperdine also tends to be more thoughtful about integrating their faith into the decisions they make in their day-to-day lives and making decisions that are consistent with who they want to be in their relationship with God, Parmelee said.
Parmelee said she thinks Pepperdine students need to shift the way they think about dating to consider it just getting to know someone.
“We need to decide we are tired of it,” Parmelee said. “We should change the mindset on what we are doing on a date — it’s more just figuring out if you like the other person or not.”
Foster said dating should not automatically infer a full-blown relationship. At most other universities, it is simply the process of getting to know another person. The phrase “casual dating,” contrary to common Pepperdine opinion, isn’t synonymous with promiscuity, but instead denotes a less intensified form of dating, Foster said.
One new couple, freshman religion major Ben Sargent and junior sports medicine major Julia Nelson, have been dating for one month and met by chance through continuously running into each other on Pepperdine’s small campus.
“I’ve heard that there’s not really too much of a dating culture because people don’t really date that often,” Sargent said. “I guess we got lucky that we aren’t apart of that.”
With the average student leaving to study abroad for an entire year, it’s no surprise that many believe it impedes their opportunities to get to know people on a casual level before a full-blown relationship takes place.
Junior education major Raegan Cavender and junior business administration major Monty Plattner have been dating for 18 months and attested to the effect that going abroad has on budding relationships.
“I was going abroad — and we started dating in March — so I was nervous. We had no idea how it would work because the first half of our relationship would be long distance,” Cavender said. “It didn’t hinder me or force me into anything, but it definitely made us define our relationship early on.”
The couple said they both knew early on they were headed toward a serious relationship. They knew their relationship was never going to be something casual and Pepperdine’s dating culture made it intimidating, Plattner said.
“Yeah, it sucked that she was going abroad, but it made me come to a decision faster and stick with it,” Plattner said. “With the whole ‘ring by spring’ thing, it seems like you’ve only got one chance. If you don’t get it right the first time, then it’ll never happen. If something does happen, it gets out super fast and then you feel like it can’t change. You’re stuck.”
The couple said they met in March through mutual friends when Cavender needed a date for her sorority formal. Within the first three weeks of dating, they were exclusive, he had met her family and they spent everyday together. They agreed that the major reason for the speed the relationship progressed was due to Cavender’s impending time abroad in Florence, Italy.
“We are not what you would call the norm,” Plattner said. “We squeezed three months of dating into three weeks and went on like, three dates a week.”
Some students believe the greatest culprit of Pepperdine’s dating culture is the Pepperdine community itself.
“It bothers me that the dating culture is different from that of other places,” junior organizational communications major Michelle Madsen said. “I think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy — the more we say that our dating culture is different, the more it will be different.”
Parmelee said she has been trying to shift the way people think about dating here at Pepperdine for years. Relationship IQ once created a campaign in which everyone in the school stopped talking about dating and instead only talked about the ways that dating does happen on campus and how students can change the way they view it.
“Pepperdine students date more than they think they do, they just don’t call it dating,” Parmelee said. “Casual lunches and coffees with a friend are functionally like dates because they serve the purpose of dating.”
However, not everyone feels positively about the prospect of “casual dating.”
“You’re dating for a reason, either because you see long-term possibilities or you want to learn more about relationships,” junior international studies major Jon Kwok said. “You are invested in it whether you like it or not, and to an extent it’s not causal because there is something in it for you.”
Throughout all the different outlooks on dating at Pepperdine, one thing students agree on is that stigmatizing dating doesn’t help the process at all, Foster said.
“I really think casual dating should be more of a thing,” Foster said. “The two outcomes are that you’ll either get to know someone better and you’ll make a good friend or you will form a relationship. We need to stop being scared of the informality of it; it’s really not that bad.”
Jenna Powell completed this story in Dr. Christina Littlefield’s fall 2015 Jour 241 class.
