Call it naïveté, stupidity, innocence – whatever term you want. But I have this idea in my head that people are genuinely good, kind, and nice because they have no reason to be anything else. Maybe this stems from the way I try to live my own life, and this isn’t me trying to be pompous or better than anyone, but I genuinely believe in trying to be a good person who treats people with respect. Apparently, that’s not the norm.

I am not a tally mark. I am not a tally mark. That’s not a typo, go ahead and read it again. This is a sentiment I shouldn’t have to reiterate, but due to the nature of goofy (stupid) college guys who think having a tallying competition with their roommates is funny, unfortunately it needs to actually be stated. Whoever I choose to talk to at a given time shouldn’t result in being a tally mark for guys to use as leverage over their friends. If I talk to you and show you that I’m interested, it’s because I genuinely am. Why would I waste my time otherwise? I definitely won’t waste my time pretending to like a guy just so I can report back to my roomies “wow, I got way more numbers tonight than you did! I win!” You win what? The satisfaction of knowing that if the girl ever finds out she was part of a tallying competition that she’ll feel humiliated, at fault herself, and doomed about the nature of every single college aged guy? Girls are not the proverbial notches in your bed, and it shouldn’t be a competition.

I’m absolutely guilty of lumping guys into one huge category and blaming them as a whole when one does something I don’t like. The thing is, I keep finding reasons to justify it. This behavior simply perpetuates a stereotype. A stereotype in which guys are lumped together in this big bad category of being disrespectful and inclined towards not caring. I feel guilty when some of my best guy friends who are genuinely nice, respectful, and awesome people say things like “we’re not all like that.” I get it, you probably aren’t all like that, but how come so many girls are burned enough to feel that way? I know I’m not the only one, and I don’t know if we’re just looking in the wrong places, or if these guys just need to grow up, but this is what makes us believe things like that. This is a product of society, our "no strings attached-don’t talk about emotion-don’t want a relationship" mindset. Getting to know someone has turned into a joke, a competition where quantity is valued over quality. If you’re going to make a joke about how many phone numbers you get and how many girls you can hookup with by reducing us to tallies, I think you should stop, take a breath, and reevaluate your life before going any further. I thought things were bad when guys were just pretending not to care, but now it seems like they actually don’t.

I don’t have the magic answer, I don’t know how to fix the problem, but I know that it is a problem. Finding out you were part of a roommate tally in which they had a competition to see who could get the most phone numbers is enough to make any girl really pissed off. In theory it might not sound like a big deal, but when the guy in question won't acknowledge you in public or around mutual friends, it becomes a problem. It also further becomes a problem when it's revealed that he’s been “talking” to one steady girl for quite some time. How can you show committed interest in one girl while disrespecting and degrading so many others at the same time?

I feel like the Taylor Swift of blog style articles. I was stumped on what to write for this week, so to every guy who has ever made me lose faith in the male species, thanks for at least giving me something to write about! I don’t want to say I’ve lost hope in college guys as a whole, but I’m coming pretty close. This "tally mark" mentality is not okay, and it needs to be addressed. Don’t let the stereotype so many of you guys hate be perpetuated by this kind of behavior. It's not cool, it doesn’t make you cool, and you need to stop. In the least conceited way possible, I think I'm a great catch. I'm intelligent, fun, kind, generous, respectful, caring. After spending some time not feeling comfortable doing so, I'm finally validating myself. And I won't be reduced to a slash mark, so listen up boys and change your ways.