Photo by Bethany Cobbs
We all have questions about love and relationships. Some we are willing and brave enough to ask out loud and others we keep to themselves and just wonder silently.
The event “Pillow Talk: From Courting to Booty Calls” provided OU students with some of the answers to the questions that have been tugging at their minds.
The event took place during Sex and Relationship Health week, hosted by the Health Service Center. Monday and Tuesday before the event Donna Washington, Counselor at the College, and Sydnee Krueger, Campus Activities Coordinator, promoted the event while taking questions from students in the cafeteria. During the lunch hours students had the opportunity to anonymously submit questions they had about relationships.
Washington gives credit to Krueger, who came up with the concept for the event in the fall. “We wanted to do something new and different regarding relationships,” Donna said. “What a better way to get a dialogue going than to have our students lead the discussion?”
After sorting through the questions, they were presented to the student body by a panel of select students. The panel was made up of students with different relationship statuses including ‘single’, ‘it’s complicated’, and ‘in a relationship’.
With different relationship statuses and experiences, the panel of students brought unique and interesting insights to the questions and situations that were presented.
Questions discussed included giving a definition of ‘talking’, when and how to introduce your “friend” to your family, inappropriate snap chats, what is attractive and what is not, and how to dtr (define the relationship).
The event even involved audience interaction. Each person received a thumb on a stick when they arrived at the event.
When a panel member said something that they agreed with the audience was supposed to their thumb up giving the panel a “thumbs up.” When they didn’t agree with something they could give a “thumbs down.”
When did relationships get so complicated? Why are we so scared to ask questions when most of the time a lot of us are seeking answers to the same questions? Our current society has created so many unspoken rules for relationships that dictate how we do things.
Everyone has a picture of what a perfect relationship is to him or her, and to reach that relationship we have to be willing to break the rules society has set in place and create our own rules.
Relationships cannot start or progress if the questions in our head don’t eventually come out of our mouths. While the panel provided great suggestions and answers, not every relationship works the same way.
“From Courting to Booty Calls” received great reviews from the student body and will be returning to OU next year.
Yes, there are some tough questions you can’t take to your friends or significant other or that you need an outsiders perspective on before you take them to those people. For that reason Donna is always available to students in the Health Service Center located on the first floor of Ward Science.