POSTCARD FROM THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

It's a four word response. Possibly even an excuse. Always stated matter of factly and imbued with a certain indignance. Born out of Saturday night affirmation session with my single friends and perfected in many a conversation with inquisitive relatives and acquaintances from high school, I had repeated it so many times I believed it to be true.

It was my mantra.

Question: "Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

Answer: "I go to Harvard."

There was never a need to explain the details. People always seemed to nod in agreement, heads cocked, with a hint of pity in their eyes. Maybe they didn't understand the nuances--that not being into one night stands at final clubs or ready to be engaged to the first boy I locked eyes with during first-year orientation week relegated me to a loathsome majority of eligible co-eds always hoping that Valentine's Day fell on a Wednesday. Maybe they wrongfully assumed my idea of fun was a night in the Widener stacks.

For once, the stereotypes didn't bother me.

My response staved off further inquisitions, diverted lengthy conversations about the minuscule details of my love life and permitted me to live safely in that Ivy League bubble that clouds your visions just enough that you perceive your problems--stress, grades, datelessness--as attributable to your situation--Harvard--and not yourself.

Yet, my response also gave me a unique burden to bear this summer. Off to DC and miles away from The Crimson's fortress where students forsake Friday night gatherings to take surveys and write articles about the inept social scene, my excuse no longer applied. I was heading to a land where five o'clock meant the start of happy hour, not the deadline for a problem set, to a land where well built frat boys had to wear suits and ties, to a land where the interns roamed free (and you know what they say about interns).

There were no more scapegoats. I had to find myself a man.

Luckily a situation availed itself early on. Struggling to haul a load of boxes upstairs, I was confronted with a door that wouldn't stay open long enough to pull my hand truck through, and, to my delight, a handsome young man willing to hold it open. I graciously thanked him and smiled coyly like I imagined a sorority girl would do. We rode the elevator upstairs together.

Before stepping off, he invited me for drinks.

I was busy.

"Lunch on the hill tomorrow?" I inquired.

He accepted.

If it weren't for the boxes I'd have skipped off the elevator. This was something that would never happen at Harvard. My summer of free love was about to begin. Or so I thought.

The next day I met elevator boy--I'll call him E. for short--at his place of work. E. was answering phones while his co-worker took a bathroom break, so I took a seat in the reception area. Just as the pleather seats were starting to itch my pantyhose, the other intern returned. Catching me looking impatient, she asked if I'd been helped, and, in the same breath asked E. when the "lunch chick" was going to arrive.

"That would be me," I volunteered.

Fighting off a twinge of uncertainty, I reminded myself that "lunch chick" was better than chickwich any day, and E. and I stood up to leave.

Unfortunately, lunch wasn't much better. Conversation was...ummm... uhhh... huh huh (insert Beavis voice here)...shall I say... sparse.

Figuring it was a sure fire way to get the boy talking, I asked E. where he went to school.

"Oh, Arizona State. Are you living in DC with someone from school?"

"Yes. Well that must be nice. And how old is her?"

"Thirty. Hummm." I was the speechless one now. "So that would make him a fifth... sixth... twelfth year senior."

Things didn't improve.

And the rest of my summer hasn't been much different. The more I've forced myself to socialize with brawny jocks from state institutions, the kind of men girls say they wish went to Harvard, the more I've missed what I had all year. Good conversation. Quirky intellectualism. The kind of guys you love as friends.

And so I've been drawn away happy hour and back to night time lecture series. Back to the venues where I just might meet a Washington intern who likes to talk politics, or at the very least, one who knows how to talk.

And I've been forced to reevaluate my handy little four word response.

If Harvard students adore their friends, but admonish the dating scene, perhaps datelessness is not because of Harvard, but because of a lack of trying. Six weeks of playing the "lunch chick" has taught me that what I really want as a date is what I had all year--that while I knocked the dating scene with my pals and basked in Harvard's abounding singles' sarcasm I never really tested the uncharted waters myself.

Admittedly, it's easier to romanticize about what Harvard could be when the school year is still two months off, the weather warm and paper deadlines only distant dots on the horizon. But, none the less, I am forced to wonder about the dating scene that awaits and the possibility that next year I'll have a whole lot more explaining to do.

Lauren E. Baer '02, a Crimson editor, will be living in Dunster House next year.