Like any good school, my program has a ton of clubs that you can join. There are clubs for people interested in technology, consulting, marketing and finance. There's the MBA flag football league, Toastmasters, and the group that tutors underprivileged middle schoolers once a week.
There is one club, however, that really irks me. And that, my friends, is the couples club.
The COUPLES. CLUB. A club for couples. And couples only.
Let me tell you what bothers me about the couples club.
It is the ONLY club that is straight up discriminatory. If you aren't a couple, you can't join in their trivia nights or their brownie bake-offs or any of the other things they do. They don't say this outright, but let's not be stupid here.
We have a club that caters to women, that lets us know about women MBA conferences, sponsors panels of women, and so on. But you know what? There are guys (okay, just one guy) in this club! Because you don't necessarily have to be female to want to hear the stories of some really successful businesswomen.
If you're not Asian but want to go hang out at whatever our Asian business club is called, go for it! Tons of non-Asian people are interested in living in Asia or finding out about Asian business issues.
When the graduate international student club had their welcome back to campus dinner, more than one international student invited me to go (hi, free Indian food, you don't have to ask me twice).
A few weeks ago, there was a black MBA conference in New Orleans. Out of all the classmates I know who went, none are black.
Do you know what would happen if I show up, by myself, to a couples club event? Neither do I, because I'm not about to try. But I imagine that a) I would get stared at, b) people would ask if I have someone coming, and c) I would age about 50 years in the span of an hour by hanging out with a bunch of people who are apparently too mature to hang out with us craaaaazy single folk.
Why do they even need a club? Does having a significant other really count as a common interest in the way that people in the marketing field share similar experiences? And just because you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance(e)/spouse, does this mean that you can't use this time to get to know ALL of your classmates? Why segregate yourselves on the basis of something so arbitrary?
You know what would be more useful than a couples club? A club for people who used to live in New York. OR a club for Jewish business people. OR a club for people who love to read non-fiction literature. ALL OF THESE, no matter how ridiculous they seem (some schools probably do have a Jewish business club, just...not mine), could actually have the potential to promote networking amongst like-minded people. The couples club, on the other hand, does not have any inherent kind of usefulness except to exclude people and make its members lame. Because there is definitely a problem with someone who is married at 28 and thinks that they're at the age where they should start hanging out only with other married people.
How is this even allowed to go on? I call shenanigans. Single people, unite!
2 comments:
Kind of seems ridiculous. Maybe you should take a lady and see if they discriminate against gay couples. Or couples that are just friends. seems like a weird concept to me.
You know why they're joining this club? Because the men in these relationships have tiny penises and the women need to commiserate with each other. It's in the fine print.
Or something.
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