Columbia's $100K dating game

Only one Ivy has managed to escape the bilious spew of this column's author, and its name is more pretentious than any other in the league: Columbia University in the city of New York. And boy, oh boy, did Columbia students make it easy to end this satire column on a high note.

Ever size up someone on campus to see if they were your "type"? We all have. But Columbia's women? They say there aren't any good men on campus - and they've had enough of the bullshit (and no, I don't mean Barnard).

So last week, one of Columbia's finest sororities, Sigma Delta Tau, took the dating game to the next level - that is, the frighteningly professional level of artificial selection laced with trust-fund enthusiasm - to invite Janis Spindel, author of "Get Serious About Getting Married: 365 Proven Ways to Find Love in Less Than a Year" and founder of Janis Spindel Serious Matchmaking, to help them unlock the secret behind "finding handsome and successful men in New York - and, more importantly, how to marry them," according to the Columbia Daily Spectator.

"My fees start at 100K," Spindel told the Spectator of her service. "Ivy league, brunette, Jewish, whatever you want, I'll get her."

Well, good to know there's only a Maserati-sized bill and some applied Darwinism standing between a Columbia gal and a good man. Spindel didn't stop there, though, responding to a question about dating outside of one's religion: "Jewish men will date shiksas. They won't marry them. You don't want to set yourself up for something you're not going to finish." The same went for interracial dating, according to the Spectator. "You're in New York. Find someone from your own tribe."

Have mercy! It seems our uptown neighbors are having some serious troubles finding affluent, eligible members of the "power elite" - at least from their "own tribe" - and they're ready to pony up the cost of their entire undergraduate education to remedy the problem.

(Boys, it looks like you're out of luck. Here's a new idea for a mascot: The Columbia Blue Balls.)

According to the national Sigma Delta Tau website, the sorority was founded on March 25, 1917, as "a sorority which would respect the individuality of its members, especially religious minorities." So what could be more in line with the sorority's mission to provide sisters with "intellectual, philanthropic, leadership and social opportunities" than offering the services of Ms. Spindel?

Good to know Columbia's sororities are sticking to their pledges to diversity. Sigma Delta Tau: Respecting the individuality of its members since 1917 - just remember to write a big check and keep to your own tribe. Don't any of those Barnyard girls have anything to say about this?

Now NYU, I know you're shaking your head: those elitist bastards. Though Columbia claims to have diversity, in reality students are just mating at their own lunch tables. But don't be too presumptuous, NYU - it's time to look in the prejudice mirror and realize that NYU violet is only a few shades away from Columbia blue. And it doesn't take an actual Greek community to make desperation come out and rear its Ivy-covered head.

NYU, like its Ivy older brother, is a hotbed of diverse homogeneity - so what should we do to help our poor, outnumbered sorority girls find eternal love? Spindel's already made her mark uptown, and God forbid we get caught copying an Ivy. That's why I propose that ABC bring their hit show "The Bachelor" to Washington Square for next year's "The Bachelor: Hipster and a Loft."

Who wouldn't want to see NYU's most desperate brawl for a scruffy, Lower East Side hipster on national television? "Quite frankly, my Chucks are rotting!"

See, we downtown kids like to position ourselves like we're less rich - and desperate - than those uptown kids. But really, it's oranges and apples, American Apparel V-necks and Ralph Lauren polos. Different look; same function. Ever compare the posts of BoredAtBobst.com and BoredAtBaker.com? You could swap them without knowing the difference in stupidity.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

So, to appear less calculated but still find true love, we need a game show to play matchmaker for us. Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Chris Harrison, Chris Harrison, catch me a catch.

That way, our proud but few sorority girls will be able to meet the Goldman Sachs investment bankers of their dreams - all in the name of love (cough cough), I mean a piece of that $25 million year-end bonus.

How else could a girl pay for that cavernous loft on Grand Street after graduation?

So that, my friends, is a true mark of NYU's Ivy envy - the desire to be as upper-crust and exclusive as our upper-town neighbors but resolutely deny the motive. And I should know - three months after I toss the mortarboard at this year's commencement, you'll find me soaking in the August heat uptown at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

Mmm, sweet hypocrisy indeed. Envy is a dish best served with irony.

Andrew Nusca is a columnist for the WSN. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.