Seriously, who gives out their number anymore?

I remember having a drunken bonding moment with a really cool guy in college a few years ago, and he asked for my number. I asked for his screen name instead. I mean, IM-ing someone is so much more casual, and so much less stressful. You don’t have to feel your heart thumping through your chest as the phone rings. Is he going to answer? Is it going to go to voicemail? Is he blocking me? What do I say if he picks up?

With IM, you can see if he’s away or idle, and choose your own adventure from there. You can leave a casual “Just wanted to say I had a great time last night” IM, rather than starting a phone call with the same line and then struggling to make small talk. Likewise, you can make small talk behind the shield of the IM window, where he can’t hear your voice crack, and where you can copy and paste the whole convo to all of your girlfriends and get advice while you try to weed out his intentions.

And then came Facebook. The social network has made quite the mark on the dating scene. There’s the poke, which can be viewed as casual, flirty, or creepy. There’s the “it’s complicated” label for the relationship you’re in (finally- you can be open about having a f*ck buddy without warding off the rest of the male population!); and of course, there’s the wall post, which makes the casual IM seem like the awkward phone call of yesteryear. Read More »

February 8th: Female student shoots two fellow students to death before ultimately killing herself at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.

February 11th: 17-year-old student shoots and critically wounds a fellow student during high school gym period in Memphis, TN.

February 12th: 14-year-old boy shoots a classmate, 15, at junior high school in Oxnard, CA. The victim is declared brain dead.

These three shootings preceded the most recent school tragedy to take America by the heartstrings. February 14th, 2008 will not go down in history as just another Valentine’s Day: instead, it will be remembered as the day of another fatal college campus massacre, this time, at Northern Illinois University.

Six people, including gunman Steven P. Kazmierczak, were shot to death, with 14 more shot and wounded. The gunman appeared from behind a curtain in a geology class minutes before the period ended and began to open fire. Read More »