By Kathryna Hoyman · Managing Editor
This week, the college’s Residence Life hosted an event that they advertised throughout campus as both How to Talk to Boys 101 and How to Talk to Girls 101.
News of this event reached as far as Geneva College, and even the mere advertising of it seemed to confirm something that all students fear – that we as a campus are socially awkward and don’t know the darnedest thing about conversing with the other gender.
Thankfully, Wednesday night’s event conveyed a bit more hope for the college and its students.
Instead of a stiff, ill-at-ease and desperate crowd that may have been expected at such a lecture, the audience was warm and engaged, talkative, quick to laugh and lighthearted. Every seat in Old MAP was taken, and students who couldn’t find seats lined the walls of the room. The crowd provided a diverse group of single students and those in relationships, freshmen and upperclassmen and, of course, boys and girls.
Sophomores Pax Robinson and Lindsay Byrd emceed the event, presenting questions to a panel of professional guy/girl talkers: Chris Merrick, assistant director of Residence Life and RD of Ketler Hall; Tori Wright, director of Residence Life; Emily Davis, wife of the RD of Alumni and Lincoln Halls, and Donald Shepherd, professor of Christian ministries.
The presented questions were practical and applicable to contexts both within and beyond the college, centering around the convergence of the Christian life and guy/girl relationships, both platonic and romantic. The panel emphasized mutual respect, willingness to serve, clear intentions, determined boundaries and a relaxation of guy/girl divisions.
As the advertisements of this event and the responses to said advertisements would suggest, the topic of guy/girl relationships and friendships becomes a convoluted one at small Christian colleges like Grove City. This event sought to respond to the cultural pressure and uncertainty that students here face.
Dating in the 21st century itself has become a baffling process, swinging violently from patriarchal extremes to radical feminism, and marriage becomes disoriented in the confluence. While Christian circles importantly recognize marriage’s sacred quality and incorporate essential moral standards in dating, they experience the good, bad and ugly of a whole new swath of ideologies, like the courtship movement sparked by Joshua Harris’ book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and the obsessive purity culture that responded.
Members of Res Life chose to address these tricky topics of romantic and platonic communication, and instead of responding in denial or discomfort, students showed up eager to glean wisdom from those who have experience navigating such precarious waters.
While not all confusion over the age-old nuances of guy/girl dynamics has been solved, Res Life has come alongside a student body enthusiastic about approaching such relationships well. With lively involvement, the college is taking steps to learn how to be intentional without treating in-person interactions like scrolling on a Hinge account, how to be kind without giving the wrong impression and how to ultimately love each and every neighbor well, brothers and sisters in Christ alike. We are coming to find out, slowly but surely, that as Merrick said, “It ain’t gotta be that deep.”
