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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Adetola Hassan, December 16, 2001. Interview R-0160. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Dating, faith, and double standards

Hassan discusses her thoughts on dating as a freshman student at Duke University. Of particular interest are Hassan's thoughts on dating in relationship to her religious views and her thoughts about "double standards" for young men and young women when it came to dating.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Adetola Hassan, December 16, 2001. Interview R-0160. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

Wanted to know now in now I don't know if you had thought about seriously dating at this phase in your life since you are still very, very young. You're very very young and this is your freshman year. Wanted to know what are some of the, if you are considering dating now, what are some of the qualities that you are looking for in guys who are in school now with you?
ADETOLA HASSAN:
That's probably one of the reasons why I don't date much because there's a lot of pressure I think to get involved with physically. So that's a big problem. Like guys come up to you and you're pretty much sure, go away, because you know exactly what they want.
BARBARA COPELAND:
Gee that has to be very, very pressuring because, no—. I don't mean to cut you off, but I'm just really interested in wanting to know I'm quite sure you've met some guys who probably appear to be very attractive to you and so how do you, how do you reconcile. You say to yourself now I know what they want. I know what they want and I know what they're looking for. Chances of them being Latter Day Saints is probably going to be very slim. How do you reconcile that?
ADETOLA HASSAN:
Well, I don't think that it's absolutely necessary to date an LDS person, a Latter Day Saint person. I think it might not be a good idea to get incredibly involved to the fact that you would want to get married because if you don't want to marry someone who is not LDS, then that could be an issue. But as far as just finding somebody to date, I think date somebody who will respect you and like is willing to just deal with what you believe in then if not, too bad. It's hard especially because there's a shortage of guys and finding a guy who and guys know it. So they know they can pretty much get whatever they want from whoever will give it to them. So that's hard.
BARBARA COPELAND:
Oh gosh. It is because there's more women than there are men, and they well know it. So they prey on that.
ADETOLA HASSAN:
The funny thing is the double standard because I know I was talking to one of my friends. She's not LDS, but she has pretty high standards, and she was saying I got this guy. He just completely used girls and whatever and then he turned to her and said I'm going to marry somebody like you who is like a virgin and doesn't drink. That's really, they want to have fun, but then when they slow down, they want. There's definitely a double standard.
BARBARA COPELAND:
Now just hearing her tell you that and to come to know that this is how they value, how they place their values and what they really want to settle down with. Then does that make you reflect on well I am a prime choice, and I'm going to keep myself that way because I'm, I know that I'm in his higher category so to speak.
ADETOLA HASSAN:
Well, I guess that's encouraging, but I think mostly it's for me just my self-worth. There's a lot of insecurity I think that comes with sort of selling yourself or not treating yourself the way that you should be treated and the respect that you deserve.