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 panty hose, 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 he?"

"Thirty. Hmmm." 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.