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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Column: Analyzing the players

It’s inevitable a guy possessing undeniable charm and modesty would have a wealth of female friends here at G-Dub. And despite my occasional use of the moniker “G-Dub,” I’ve also managed to keep a decent number of guy friends, albeit largely because I buy my friends by paying dues in a Greek-letter organization. Where that had any relevance, I don’t know.

Anyway, thanks to my legion of female cohorts, I am privy to the struggle facing many women students. Most recurrent is the following complaint among women about life here at G-Du… GW: the struggle against the stark deficiency of available guys that are suitable for various purposes such as dating and love and stuff.

It is true. The girl-to-guy ratio seems to tilt heavily away from a woman’s favor, even before factoring in the number of guys who help compose our vibrant gay community at GW. Tragically, existing anomalies such as the asexual, the hygienically challenged or those like myself, who choose to remain abstinent, only further deplete significant resources from the dating scene of numerous women.

However, of all men perpetuating the plight of the single woman, the most formidable is the player. Reviled by many, the player (or “playa” in more thug-appreciative terminology) is a curious creature, characterized best by their evasion of responsibility. They are called shady. They are given scarlet letters and in turn, give scarlet rashes to those they victimize. Grievances against players include their inability to return phone calls before midnight or while sober and their fear of public places while in the company of a girl.

But the greatest charge against the player is his proclivity for “seeing” numerous girls at once, as if waywardly stricken by a gambling addiction. Subsequently, this condition is often referred to as “nookie roulette syndrome.” Alright, I made that up, but had I used “poker,” “hold ’em,” or “slots” it probably would have been taken out of context.

A side note: None of this commentary is meant to preclude the existence of female players; however, their plight is given significantly less credence because of both demographical statistics at GW and the sweeping moral ambiguity of most guy students.

So these players, lambasted for their compulsions, are quickly written off from the social scene by their mortal enemies, known as player-haters. But upon looking at the credo of the player more carefully, I believe that perhaps the stigma placed on players is extremely premature.

It is possible that players could be misunderstood; their intentions misconstrued. Players are more sensitive than most consider. Often they become emotionally torn by the presence of so many attractive and erudite eligible women. It only pains a player to see these women lonely and unappreciated. Whether these unappreciated women happen to be in the same circles of friends or sororities is inconsequential.

So in reality, the player is a giver. We have already established that there are not nearly enough guys to satisfy the number of single women on campus. Therefore, the labors of the player are in actuality, a service to the community. So why are they demonized?

The case for playerdom, beyond the argument of supply and demand, is one that has many layers. Players represent an evolutionary form of quality control. To survive, the clumsy male dater has to raise his game in order to hang with the player, thus developing charm, accruing bling, attaining or disposing intelligence and amassing a closet full of pink polo shirts with collars starched upward to serve as a subconscious metaphor.

Meanwhile, the player, through his frequent “endeavoring,” breeds a more sophisticated partner. This benefit ties directly into solving the second biggest complaint of the female student: a woman’s dismay upon finally finding a suitable guy only to have him be completely inept with intimacy.

At the end of the night, one might argue that it is actually the player-hater who creates the greatest social disarray on campus. By slowing down the evolutionary process of shot-calling, the player-hater deprives the dating scene of much-needed assets. Without such tools, the single woman on campus is left to stick it out on her own, which is truly the most tragic upshot of the player’s dilemma.

-The writer, a senior majoring in Middle East studies, is a Hatchet humor columnist.

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