What Emma Learned

The Social Network – a film about Facebook and its founder

The Spit Network – a diagram charting the sexual relationships of people at your college/university halls (sponsored by Facebook)

At university, a kind of social Darwinism is in evidence. Very early on (we’re talking seconds, not weeks) people will rate each other on the basis of appearance. This is inevitable, but you are still allowed to find it depressing. Although people use different statistical models, the 1-10 rankings system is the most easily understood: if you’re ugly, you’re a 1, but if you’re catwalk material, you’re a 10.

Some people will be open about how they assess people and they’ll talk candidly about their preferences. Others are not even aware that they’re making judgements (but you can be sure they are).

However, there is one crucial principle in operation and it is as follows: individuals gravitate towards those of a similar rating. This is biology in action – you hang around with people who look like you or rate like you because there’s a competitive advantage. A group of attractive girls will draw in a cadre of hot guys; it’s more difficult if you’re on your own fighting for attention.

However, don’t despair if you think that you’re not an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the Beautiful People scale. There’s some consolation in the fact that one person’s 4 is another person’s 7 – if you’re in the middle, you’ll attract debate and we all know that any publicity is good publicity. Almost.

If you fear that you might be more like a 2 or 3, take heart from the fact that you probably have a winning personality. Because the thing about the 9s and the 10s is that they’re often incredibly dull people. They tend to think that they can earn their social keep on the basis of their appearance. Many of them rely on the unspeakably vain conceit that other people will be willing just to look at them and it doesn’t matter that they have nothing of any value to say.

These people will often subsist on the conversational scraps of talking about how many calories they’ve consumed today or how much they had to drink last night. Essentially, they’re competing with each other to be the leader of their groups, so you’re probably better off out of it.

Anyhow, things start to become really interesting when the 2s and 3s get off with the 9s and 10s. Some of these 2s and 3s will cynically eye their target before a big night out and then make sure that their prey’s consumption of alcohol means that there’s no chance they might be rejected. Many 7s and 8s will whore themselves out to whoever’s up for it, although some of them will bide their time waiting for a 9 or 10 to get with the programme and ask them out.

Regardless of anyone’s ratings, there will be particular people documenting her meaningful look or his wandering hands. These citizen journalists are tuned in to detect the static crackle of sexual tension. They’ll know which girl left the rugby captain’s room at 5am on the morning after the night before. They’ll know what guy is cheating on his girlfriend. In other words, they might know more about your relationships than you do. I was, and am, one of these people, those who make it their business to know yours. And we make sure, as far as we can, that our own lives stay private.

It follows that if you’re a dedicated citizen journalist you can create a Spit Network – a diagram charting the ‘interactions’ (read ‘sexual encounters’) between members of a community. Unsurprisingly, it can be a very useful source of information. Want to know who your ex-girlfriend was involved with in first year? Need to find out whether your new boyfriend is a player? It’s all there.

Remember, if you betray a source or you spread false allegations, you’ll be totally discredited. But, do it properly and you’ll be popular and (sort of) respected. In producing the graphic, you might even feel like you’ve performed some kind of public service. And there’s a measure of satisfaction in it, the kind that not even a 10 rating can provide.

The lexicon:

Do use phrases like ‘I think he works out’

Avoid comments along the lines of ‘She’s worth a few squirts’