After Dark
Love Connection:
Bar patrons at the 18th Amendment, now The O Street Tavern, pass time with friends. Especially in college towns, bars are seen as a good place to meet dates.
Are you destined to find true romance in a bar?
By Kathy Daneman
Special sections reporter
"Is your daddy a thief? Because he stole the stars out of the sky and put them in your eyes."
"Baby, are your legs tired? Because you've been running through my dreams all night."
"I don't want to sleep with you. I just want to wake up next to you so when I see you again, I'll know we've shared something special."
Pick-up lines. They can be a conversational disaster but are seemingly indispensable. Even if your repertoire is limited to "What's your sign?" lines are ultimately useless if you don't know where to go. Testosterone and estrogen must fulfill their destinies, but whither shall you wander?
There's always the laundromat, Dillons or work. Lawrence boasts enough bars to make anyone happy. Can the KU student find a life partner at Johnny's Tavern or the Cadillac Ranch?
"It's happened before," said Matt Hampel, Overland Park sophomore, or barroom romances. "But do they last? No. Sometimes, I guess, but in my experience — no."
"I went to NiteOwls," said Brooke Baird, Carthage, Mo., sophomore. "I didn't meet anyone."
"I can't see someone meeting someone at a bar and having a long-term relationship," said Jeff Tilma, Lenexa junior. "But it has all varying degrees of possibility."
So, maybe bars aren't the answer. Tilma said he met friends at the Aug. 20 They Might Be Giants show at the Granada They introduced him to a friend. Now,
Tilma said he may go out with her.
Jeanine May, Lawrence resident, said, "Everyone I meet in Lawrence, I meet at Perkins, Teller's or the Replay Lounge."
"It was just complete luck," he said.
But fire codes prevent all single students from packing into these three places at once. It would seem that students meet love interests just as they always have: in class, at school organizations or through friends.
Some people would say it isn't the shortage of people in Lawrence that accounts for lack of dates. "I go to clubs," Hampel said. "I go to Java Break. I walk around campus. There are people everywhere."
Scott Herndon, Overland Park senior, said it was possible to meet someone anywhere.
Lawrence isn't short on places for meeting people. Sit in front of the Kansas Union with an open pack of cigarettes, and see how many people you meet in an hour. The truly desperate can try streaking past Wescoe Beach, the popular hang out in front of Wescoe Hall.
"How often do you meet someone, but not do anything?" he asked.
Sure-fire ways to spend the remainder of the century alone: hand out filers on campus, refuse to bathe in anything but pungent body oils or sit in a dark corner and rebuff the slightest human contact.
The easiest place to meet a kindred spirit may be in class. Most students spend an enormous amount of time in class. Where else do they have an opportunity to learn each excruciating nuance of Hamlet and arrange study dates?
"You go out with people you see in class," Tilma said. "It's always someone you never spoke to in class. Then you see them somewhere, and you go out."
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- Hill • September 13, 1995
Planet Lawrence
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