I recently met a Northwestern student with an interest in prostitution. Her interest was not sexual, but rather almost entirely social. She just wanted a gentleman to take her out for dinner and romance her. This situation might seem pathetic or lonesome, but that’s not the way she saw it. In fact, this girl seemed quite happy and sociable, not what one might think of as a loser. It was just that every now and then, she had the urge to pay for the romantic situations that were largely absent from her relationships.

This girl made the point that if college males were really only interested in money and sex, then the easy solution was for them to become, as she put it, man-whores. I sat back and thought about whether her basic assumptions were right: Are most college guys obsessed with — and constantly in need of — sex? Do most college guys want more money?

Are direct answers to these questions necessary?

These two whore-related observations suggest a new way to go about relationships in college. Maybe the only way to force college guys into being genuinely romantic is if money is on the line, if it’s part of a well-paying job, with sex as a possible bonus. Maybe the only way women will have genuinely romantic experiences is if they pay for them. And if we put two and two together, maybe the best way to radically alter collegiate relations between the sexes is to have women become johns and men become man-whores.

The repercussions would be dramatic. Men would never complain about paying the bill because they’re being paid to pay for it. Women would feel like they were being courted. Couples would no longer stare at each other during long, awkward pauses since men, as part of their job, constantly would have witty remarks and always seem interested in what their johns have to say.

My proposal, of course, is not without its flaws. For instance, I probably would not make a good man-whore. I haven’t a clue how to court or woo a woman. I’m not even sure what wooing entails. Flowers and chocolate?

And I doubt that I’m alone. NU is surely overflowing with many such incompetents, much more comfortable having an esoteric and pretentious conversation about Kant than romancing professionally.

But I have a solution. Maybe those pseudo-intellectuals who think that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone could pay to have their craniums stimulated. I’d make a great man-whore of Mensa. Or if you prefer a great one-liner to a brainy conversation, you could try a funny hooker who will dazzle you with his sense of humor.

But wouldn’t this whorization of relationships completely destroy the chance for anything long-term? People would go from one meaningless fling to the next, barely cognizant of who they are paying for or, for the man-slut, who they are being paid to like. Wouldn’t people constantly be hooking up with new hookers? In fact, doesn’t all this whore stuff presuppose that very few college students are even interested in the notion of true love, in lasting happiness with another human being that transcends all else?

Yes, it certainly does. But true love — why would anyone want that?

Paul Flaig is a Weinberg senior. He can be reached at [email protected].