Last week, I discussed the correlation between pockets of good weather and rashes of PDA. What I didn’t mention is that these balmy afternoons and golden dusks also mark another important yearly phenomenon that, as a sex columnist in my final year at Brown, would be irresponsible of me to ignore: Senior Scramble.
What is Senior Scramble exactly? According to Urban Dictionary, Senior Scramble is:
The last-ditch attempt among college seniors to find new hook-up partners or to consummate a long-standing crush before graduation. While the term may refer to the final year of college, it is usually understood to mean the final semester, especially during the last weeks of school. With the impending end of a college environment, the connotations of the term “senior scramble” are of desperate solicitation and confession.
I like this definition. It covers the essentials. However, a friend recently called my attention to the fact that Senior Scramble presents us with a chicken-or-egg dilemma. Which comes first? The conscious quest for last-minute liaisons, or the naturally arising urge to connect with people because time is running out? Do we do the scrambling, or does the scramble do us? I put my money on the latter.
Some restrict Senior Scramble to Senior Week, the true 11th hour of senior year, but I believe the Scramble begins well before the home stretch of May. We’re months away from the last hurrah, yet I’ve felt my biological Brown clock ticking ever since returning this January. As with menstruation, there are a finite number of eggs to be had at this institution, and a four-year window during which to fertilize them.
Stay with me here—I have been chattering on about Senior Scramble, which may lead you to believe that this phenomenon applies to only ¼ of the undergraduate population. I’m pleased to debunk this fallacy. You too could be part of this sexual free-for-all, freshmen reading this sentence in the Ratty, sophomores skimming the sex column in the SciLi, and juniors perusing Post- at Jo’s.
That’s right; you might already be implicated in this mess. You might not yet be an egg in a Senior Scramble, but you may already be an ingredient in a Senior Omelet in which seniors act as the eggs that hold the omelet together, and the underclassmen represent the fixings that give the omelet its decidedly un-egglike textures and flavors. (I can’t take credit for the theory of Senior Omelet. I’m indebted to a friend with a penchant for social commentary and a knack for metaphor construction.) If you want to extend this metaphor even further, it is up to you how many fixings you want to include in your omelet. All I’m saying is, you’re only a senior once, and polyamory is potentially a condiment on the table.
And seniors! Our days at Brown are numbered. True, we run the risk of disease (e.coli) and fear crushing our delicate protective shells in the process, but we might as well just go for the Scramble or the Omelet, depending on what we’re craving, and not worry about getting egg on our faces, as it were.
So the question remains: can we, could we, should we incorporate aspects of the senior egg dish mentality into our sexual interactions at other, less urgent moments? I’ll let those of you currently in the throes of The Scramble decide for yourselves.
Keep this in mind: omelets (and scrambles) are delicious. And, in order to make one, you do have to break a few eggs.
Bon Appétit.
