For some people, college is seen as the perfect opportunity to find their one true love. For others, it's a chance to finally get out there and begin their love life. For all, however, it is the time to be pushed into close quarters with many other young adults of approximately the same age.

Now before all you readers swallow your birth control and strap on your jimmy-hats, there are a few things that you should know about romance at the U of C. From day one on, there are many uniquely U of C situations to watch out for and often avoid. As you all enter your dorms and meet tens to hundreds of people, you must realize that O-Week, while supposedly supplying students with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed at the University, also supplies the student body with memorable, and often forgettable, romantic endeavors.

Popularly known as “O-mances,” first-week hook-ups (or loves of your life as some of you may find) are a fun-but-dangerous activity. You are here, away from your parents; so why not slap tongues with the first person who crosses your path? Well, for one, this lovely person is one of a limited number of students admitted to the College each year. It is therefore very likely that you will run into Mr. or Ms. Wrong again.

Also, O-mantic O-mances may result in a stagnating social life. If you throw all your energy into courting that one budding rose, then you are more than likely going to miss out on the other flowers in the garden. A similar result ensues when these serious O-mances inevitably end. Both parties are then left with bruised egos and a serious lack of outside friends.

If you make it through O-week without seeing this next U of C variety of love, consider yourself lucky. House-cest, very similar to incest, often ends with a blind man wandering off into the mountains.

While it is rumored that a majority of Chicago alumni have met their significant other during their first week here, and often in housing, it is far from the truth. In reality, house-cest—dating someone from your house, i.e., someone who lives within a few feet of you—is a common, sometimes fatal problem. The need to stay warm during the winter hinders us all and keeps us indoors, but you must be careful not to get into a house-cestual relationship out of mere convenience. These relationships often end badly (Hello! You're neighbors!), and worse, can cause rifts between friends in the house—so take heed.

Once you make it past these two barriers, you are on your way to having a successful love life at the U of C. As many students know, it is possible to have a successful relationship, a successful series of hook-ups, or a successful avoidance of the opposite sex here.

Relationships at the U of C, as in many places, run the gamut from serious to flickering flings to somewhere in between. As long as you keep up with your hygiene (read: take a shower), keep your alcohol consumption at a high level (OK, maybe not so much), and relax (it isn't imperative that you have someone at your side for every moment of your life; being alone rocks!) then you are well on your way to loving love.

If you want a hook-up, you can find someone to suck face with. If you want someone to love, you can find one. Popular sayings aside, no one is too ugly for someone else (I mean, some people are into squirrels).

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