SexSage My New Year's Resolution

Author: Sage Bierster

I've made a New Year's resolution: Before the end of J-term, I will ask someone on this campus out on a date. It's not exactly a classic resolution, like "stop smoking" or "Go to the gym more often", and you might ask why this would be at the top of my New Year's list. To be honest, it's because in all my years at Middlebury I've never been on a date, and I feel that maybe I'm missing out on some important life experience. Maybe dating seems insignificant to us Midd kids, but to the world outside of our infamous bubble, the non-existence of dating is downright bizarre. I have to wonder how we accomplish such mythic rates of inter-Midd marriages if we can't muster up the courage to ask each other out for coffee, a drink or, God forbid, dinner. How is it that I, your average Middlebury student, have never been on a date?

Perhaps this topic has been on my mind lately because I've come down with, as one male friend of mine put it, the "I just got back from abroad" syndrome. Seniors and juniors returning from far away lands are stricken with a feeling that everything seems worse here than in whatever fabulous place they were not so long ago. I have bemoaned more than once this past semester the differences between Middlebury and my year abroad, especially in terms of my experience with the opposite sex, I have realized that the problem is not the quality of men here vs. those abroad but rather the lack of quantity. Our campus is much smaller than any city and it's easier to meet people and casually date when there are millions, not a couple thousand, to choose from.

What's more, I have a small thing called "a fear of rejection" that gets in the way sometimes. Instead of risking a brutal rebuke, I find myself slowly turning into a stalker, silently obsessing about cute boys I never talk to but whom I know everything about. I also psych myself out thinking about what might happen if I went out on a date: Everyone will find out about it, assume I'm in a steady relationship, tell me even more dirt about the guy and then the mystery is essentially stripped from getting to know each other.

Despite the challenges, I'm determined to keep my New Year's resolution, and I remain hopeful that dating (or its non-existence) doesn't have to be this way at Middlebury, for me or for anyone else. How many crushes have we all had that never went anywhere? Instead of wondering if that guy and I might have hit it off, I want to find out for myself. If you've already stopped going to the gym and bought a pack of cigs, I encourage you to adopt this resolution, instead; ask someone on a date this J-Term, who knows what you're missing.