Finding a mate in a bubble

You need a date. Trust me.

Unless you're one of the Orthodox Jews or Southern Baptists who came to Penn with their spouse, you've probably felt a bit lonely at some point.

My normal solution to loneliness is to go to the Greek Lady and eat cheesesteaks until my heart rate plunges and I fall asleep.

Some of my more productive friends have tried using the Internet to meet people outside of the Penn bubble. After hearing so much about it, I decided to see what the fuss is about.

So I registered on the infamous JDate.com Jewish matchmaking Web site. I chose JDate because it was a respected dating site where people were serious. For $30 a month, they'd better be serious.

At first, it was exciting. I could view all sorts of information about people from their profiles, see some pictures, send cute little messages and add people to special lists. It was almost like facebook.com, but more Jewish.

Yet the dates themselves weren't that fruitful.

Some of the dates just ended up being awkward. Other dates were a bit older and at different points in their lives, even if they had only been out of college for a year or so. They also didn't quite believe that a college junior was actually trying JDate. After all, why would someone surrounded by 5,000 women try to whore himself out on a Jewish singles site?

They were right. What the hell was I thinking?

In case you didn't notice all the parents wandering around last weekend, college is a unique time in our lives.

Where else can we meet so many different people who happen to be the same age as us and live nearby?

Where else can we attend naked parties without having to worry about our professional reputation?

Will we ever again be able to drag our ratty old couches onto our front porches, drink a beer and actually think that we're cool?

A lot of people get frustrated with not being able to find a girlfriend or boyfriend at college. Some people I know have tried looking beyond Penn. I have friends who have dated older working Philadelphians or students from far-off lands like New Jersey and even wandered all the way out to Swarthmore and Haverford to try to find a significant other.

But I don't think the trouble is with Penn people. Actually, for the most part, I think you're all hot stuff and you are too good for me.

However, there is a problem with how we approach relationships in college: We don't ask each other out. We wander around parties grinding with strangers, nursing our drinks and not straying too far from our party posse.

Despite all of our parties, all the stuff available in Philadelphia, all of our good looks and good ideas, hardly anyone here is able to just walk up to someone and ask them out. And, let's be honest, party hook-ups usually don't go very far past the next morning.

As the eminent dating guru Sen. John Kerry once said, "We can do better."

We need to start dating. Most importantly, we need to start dating each other here at Penn. With 10,000 undergraduates, Penn is the biggest singles party of our lives.

While it may seem old-fashioned, there is something to be said for planning an evening, doing something intere-sting and just plain getting to know someone face to face without the background noise of a party.

Dating should become part of our "portfolio of romantic options," says Ryan Hayward, a Wharton junior. "Maybe you go out to dinner, maybe a movie, whatever. If you like each other, you can hook up without the headache the next morning and loss of memory of five hours of your life."

Most importantly, dating requires us all to have a little bit of self-confidence. And, while you may get lonely sometimes and look off campus, the truth is that college is really the best place to look for a date. How else do you explain all the people at McDonald's at 40th and Walnut who ask to marry you? They know where to find the good stuff.

With Philadelphia at our doorstep and great innovations like meet-an-inmate.com, JDate, Friendster, MySpace and others, there is a definite temptation to leave the Penn bubble. However, remember that the bubble is only temporary. While we're here, we should swim in it as much as we can.

Eric Obenzinger is a junior history major from New York. Quaker Shaker appears on Wednesdays.

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