Last week I had an orientation for my new job. It started with free food and ended with free food, so I have nothing bad to say about it.
The orientation did, however, make me consider that which I am calling "The Mating Game". It's a game in which players try to find a mate with whom to build a nest and procreate. It's going on at most times, in most places—but it heats up when players enter into new situations, like starting a new job.
What I was reminded of through the orientation last week was how academics complicate The Mating Game—like they complicate much of everything else.
If you are an academic that is starting a new job, it might be better for you not to be playing The Mating Game (e.g., already have found a mate so that you are no longer playing)—because participation in the game can cause you unnecessary stress.
If you are an academic playing The Mating Game at a new institution, you might find yourself thinking, "Oh my goodness, an entirely new pond...am I going to be able to catch any fish??" You might find yourself being more careful than you used to be about what to wear to campus—not only because you want to give your colleagues the impression that you are tenurable, but also because you never know who might be standing behind you in line at the library circulation desk. You might also notice just how much more intriguing people's left ring fingers are—like they're somehow going to provide you the missing link you needed to support the argument in your next manuscript.
You might also be an entirely rational academic, telling yourself that you have bigger things to worry about than TMG—namely RTP. You might also know from experience that A Mate is not something that you look for, it's just something you stumble upon, like a cute Made in Korea ballpoint pen that someone left behind in the lecture hall. Or you might have the good sense of looking outside of academia for your Mate, knowing full well that one academic in a couple already has too much self-absorption going on.
(Just kidding...it's not like non-academics don't have self-absorption going on...)
But if you are like most academics, you probably realize that, really, dating an academic is so much easier than dating a non-academic. They understand the pressure before a fellowship application deadline. They understand the inanity that is departmental politics. They understand that, yes, it looks like you get a looooong summer vacation, but that's really more time spent on your research and course development, in addition to the nights and weekends that have fallen to a similar fate.
And when you date an academic as an academic, you get an automatic reviewer of your work without having to submit it to a journal. You get someone who'll be straightforward with you about the quality of your teaching and research, because that person wants to see you improve—and thrive—at the thing you most love doing. And you'll have a travel buddy who is genuinely interested in attending that conference with you, if only because it's so much more fun just to go to a conference than to present at one.
But alas...The Mating Game is not so easy for an academic at a new institution, because it turns out most people are already spoken for by the time they start their tenure-track jobs. You realize that your awkward, introverted self is matched by the awkward, introverted others who also populate the various departments across your institution. And even if you swore that you were going to be social and attend various functions across campus, let's face it, once the academic term starts, you're lucky if you make it out to pick up your CSA box once a week. And the more you try to diffuse the stress of TMG, the more you realize that you are simply being washed up in the heteronormative, patriarchal institution that is MATING. ::sigh::
And then you end up being the academic who is no longer at a new institution, because you've been there for a number of years already...and you end up looking around at the annual New Faculty Orientation dinner for someone who seems friendly, attractive, and unmated. But then, in all the wisdom that you have accumulated in your career, you tell yourself: this is the name of the game. Teachers grow old, while the students remain the same age—just like the way you grow old, while the incoming new faculty remain the same age. And the good thing is, you'll never let the stress turn into desperation. After all, writing that journal article is often more rewarding than dealing with the results of The Mating Game.
