I have a mantra, and I want you to have it too!
This is it: There is hope beyond the Hill!
There is!!! Your soulmate is probably not in Northfield. Your soulmate is almost definitely not on “the Hill.” Just because you have not found the romance you want at Olaf simply doesn’t mean anything for your future prospects. Like I said, there’s hope beyond the Hill.
I spent the first three years at Olaf frustrated by my dating options. I had plenty of general interest, just a lack of people I was especially interested in. I’d think someone was cute, then I’d talk to them. And it was fine. I asked most of the questions.
I left most interactions annoyed and just the littlest bit confused: was there something wrong with me? Were my expectations simply too high?
Going on Northfield Tinder became a game to find the most ridiculous profiles I could, or to find my friends’ profiles and spam their messages — not a particularly promising turn of events for my use of an app that was supposedly meant to help me find dates or hookups.
It was at this time at the end of my junior year, when I had given up on finding someone on the Hill, that I left to study abroad in Stockholm, Sweden, and learned the key message that I hope you remember: there is hope beyond the Hill!
Over the span of a few months there was a brilliant and kind climate justice organizer, a math PhD student from the Netherlands, and a Swedish rock climber. There were dates at sunset on a mountain, deep conversations about our families, and fun, steamy, communicative sex.
Yet in the midst of my romances I was not a different person than I am when I’m at Olaf — I was simply in a new place: a place that had a greater number and variety of people.
Right now I’m in my senior spring semester. I have never fallen in love at Olaf. I haven’t even fallen especially in lust. It’s been a whole lot of “meh,” but that doesn’t worry me anymore. It doesn’t worry me because there is hope beyond the Hill.
Tell it to yourself! Tell it to your friends! Tell it to every dejected, anonymous person on St. Olaf Flirts who wonders if they will ever find “their person” at Olaf. The truth is that I didn’t. You probably won’t either. And that’s ok, even exciting.
There is hope beyond the Hill, so don’t worry if you’re not in a relationship. Those horrible dates where you’re asking all of the questions? Don’t go on them. Those over-confident, non-communicative hookups? Stop them.
You’re worth so much more than that. I promise. There is so much hope for your love life, but that hope is likely not found in the person next to you at the tortilla line, or in your class group project team. That hope? It’s beyond the Hill. And that’s probably a good thing.
