Out and About

Navigating queer dating culture on campus.

By Zayna Jamil

Illustration by Ines Alto

Four years, 48 months, 1344 days—I had been waiting for this moment. After years of imagining the new life ahead of me, the car was packed and ready to drive off with my suitcases, picture frames of hometown friends, and a loving family trying to delay saying goodbye to their newly-adult daughter at college. After a four hour drive, I stood at the towering gates of Columbia, intimidated, but ready to begin what has already started off as a new journey. 

Arriving at Columbia, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to explore one of the most unfamiliar parts of my identity—sexuality. Queerness was not just an experience I wanted to seek through dating and friendships; it was something I was willing to cross cultural boundaries for since my family back home never accepted it. I always felt like I had to hide my identity, especially growing up in a South Asian, Muslim household where queerness was an unknown concept. This new wave of independence offered me a sense of choice, something I never truly had back home. 

During Welcome Week, I met a range of queer freshmen who, like me, were embarking on similar journeys of self-discovery. At every event I signed up for, every party I went to, and with every new friend I was introduced to, I finally saw myself and my identity in other people, something I had longed for throughout high school. For many of us, it was the first time we could fully express ourselves and our queerness. Some people found that self expression through friendship, and others through first-time hookups. Regardless, I felt seen, especially coming from a place where the overwhelming majority of people were straight. 

Getting ahead of myself a bit, I quickly found myself dealing with my first “college heartbreak” (so soon, I know). A girl I put my all into ended up breaking things off with me because we lacked compatibility. Meanwhile, she was seeing other girls and dating casually, another part of dating culture I had never been introduced to until coming to college. I was dealing with issues of my own, however, as I was still getting over my ex-girlfriend of two years, trying to further understand my sexuality, and looking to find my people at this school. She wasn’t perfect, and neither was I. Around that time, I also began to notice certain dynamics and recurring patterns within the queer community.

The queer freshman class experiencing their first real sense of queer community, all new to adulthood and over-eager to define themselves, often caused tensions. In conversations with other queer girls, phrases like “evil masc lesbian,” “cosplaying bisexual,” and “crazy femmes” emerged as a shorthand for why someone’s dating experience went sour. I never previously heard of these stereotypes in my hometown, but while being here, it felt like these stereotypes were fundamental to a girl’s perception of another. It was upsetting to know that identity plays a greater role in dating than a person’s true personality. Apparently, I wasn’t lesbian enough for the girl I was interested in because I didn’t know certain lesbian cultural media and references, which was my stark realization that, for some girls, identity is everything. The stereotypes and generalizations of queer girls fracture the community into sub-groups based on how one expresses themself, creating subtle hierarchies and exclusion. Whether a girl identifies as more feminine or masculine or whether she is more knowledgeable on lesbian culture and media than others, can shape how she’s perceived, proving that even within queer spaces, self-expression and identity are still quietly policed by stereotypes and generalizations. 

Another aspect of the queer world I was discovering for the first time was hookup culture. Within the queer community, it feels intensified: since the queer girl community is so small, nearly everyone knows or at least knows of each other. Hookup culture becomes a web of overlapping connections and mingling with people who have mingled with the same people you have mingled with before. Finding love in that tangle is incredibly difficult: There is always a connection, and sometimes that connection haunts you in ways you can’t quite shake. I often struggle with finding the right person for me who isn’t already associated with other queer people I know: I feel hopeless and realize that the right person may not exist right now and maybe isn’t even on this campus. 

At times, these factors scare me. As a queer girl navigating a new campus where I had never stepped foot before, I craved comfort in my sexuality, which I thought would come naturally here. But I now realize it takes more than just experience to find comfort. 

For many freshmen, college is their season of exploration. Although there is so much value in experimenting with love, there is always a lingering sense of fear—especially for those of us navigating a non-heteronormative world for the first time. The fear and difficulty associated with exploring queerness at Columbia makes queer communities on campus all the more necessary: they are built to be supportive spaces of care, empathy, and unconditional love for those searching for a place of shared identity. A queer space on campus that serves this function is Q House, a residential community for queer students. 

After my first two months here, I realized that it’s perfectly okay to feel like an outsider in your own community. There is an aspect of perfectionism many of us seek in our lives that is simply impossible to fulfill. Dating, making mistakes, embarrassing ourselves, having fun, and feeling insecure are all ways in which we distinguish what we truly want in our lives versus what we think we should want. Sometimes we prioritize others’ happiness over our own, only to dig ourselves into a deeper hole.

During my post-heartbreak revival, I leaned into another form of love that, to me, is far more secure and stable than romance: love from friendships. Simple things like trying a new coffee shop, having conversations til 3 a.m., Butler study sessions, and exploring New York City on weekends were ways in which I found people who provided me with the authentic love I needed. 

Experiencing this new world of queerness on campus is largely about acceptance. Acceptance of what can and will happen, and trust that through it all, we will remain ourselves and love through the pain and uncertainty. Only through that acceptance can we grow into people who welcome true, unapologetic love into our lives. 

I am trying, as we all are, with open arms and a story still waiting to be told.