By Kayla Burchuk

As winter temperatures stagnate in the subzero range, the love lives of Macalester’s first-years have adopted a similar chill after only one semester. Apparently, while one can easily read about all types of sexual deviation for homework at Mac, having actual sex or establishing any sort of romantic relationship is much harder.”It’s a really weird scene,” Robin Weiss ’10 said. “It’s mostly a product of the fact that Mac is an amalgamation of 1,800 highly intelligent, highly awkward individuals.”

Most of the students surveyed for this article attributed widespread social awkwardness and lack of risk-taking as the main causes for the disproportionate levels of celibacy and single-hood for such a seemingly liberal and permissive campus.

t is not as though first-years find their offbeat peers unattractive. In fact, many of the students surveyed reported a decently attractive student population despite Macalester’s small size. One anonymous first year even described Mac as “a target rich environment,” to quote the movie “Top Gun.”

Sadly, many factors complicate said target acquisition. First years become less likely to venture outside of their established social cliques as the year progresses, making it difficult to meet new people. This phenomenon can also lead to incestuous hookups within close-knit groups.

Upperclassmen are even more difficult to access because they have become more entrenched in their groups of friends over time. Even more dishearteningly, when a first year glimpses a potential target (especially within the prized demographic of desirable straight males) that person usually learns that the object of his or her desire is already in a committed relationship. In the words of Sara Mercado ’10, “All the attractive heterosexual men at Macalester are into their woman of the moment, who’s not you.”

The inopportune combination of a lack of options, a lack of daring, and raw post-adolescent desire appears to lead to a significant amount of alcohol- and drug- fueled hookups. While these brief affairs may be exhilarating in the moment, they often lead to extreme social awkwardness and broken relationships. For these reasons “you better be stoned or drunk,” Andy Pragacz ’10 said.

One group seemingly on the romantic fringes in the class of 2010 is the athlete or “jock” subculture. There are more student athletes than ever before in the class of 2010 and they were the most dissatisfied group questioned. Some Macalester soccer players expressed a lack of interest in Macalester’s artsy, hyper-intellectual women of tall boots and sweater vests. They desire more traditional models of femininity, as seen on other ACTC campuses. One soccer player went so far as to describe St. Thomas as “Disneyland with boobs.” They report feeling most closely aligned with female athletes out of all the women on campus but mostly hopeless and disinterested when it comes to dating.

Though Valentine’s Day may be around the corner, a clichéd box of candy or card would be a mere band-aid on the larger social problems plaguing the class of 2010. The first years, and perhaps the larger Macalester community, need to seriously re-evaluate the sources of their social dissatisfaction or risk spending another long winter alone.