Illustration by Andrea Nebhut

Repeat after me:

I, Trinitonian Reader, will date women this Valentine’s Day.

Upon being asked to write a piece about queer dating at Trinity, several ideas ran through my head. Do I create an expose piece in the style of the infamous ‘web’ from the L word, outing all of the strange love connections you never expected at Trinity? Do I complain about how many times straight people asked me what lesbian sex was? Do I write a how-to for young gays to find their confidence, lose their shame and start dating women with the help of one simple act: gay eye contact?

Suddenly, I realized what I had to do. To be young and in college is frequently a time where our self-confidence is lacking, where we aren’t sure of who we are and what we want, where we aren’t sure if wide-leg jeans are cute or make us look like cute plumbers. I arrived at college a fervent heterosexual with long hair, fluttering eyelashes and a willingness to speak to men more than one time each day. Look at me now!

This Valentine’s Day, you may find yourself feeling down on your romantic luck. Maybe you are worried the right boy out there will never be there for you, maybe some Delt treated you badly (don’t they all), maybe one too many Tinder dates went awry when someone suggested you open a 401K together. To this, I say: don’t worry. I have a solution. It’s the solution that I am boldly suggesting you, and every person who is not a straight man on this campus needs.

Date women. Just try it! Try loving one, kissing one, adopting a cat with one! Date anyone who is not a man. I recommend trips to Home Depot, going ax-throwing together, shopping at thrift stores for overalls with your new sultry sweetie. In this season of love, love some ladies.

I don’t want to make any outrageous accusations or polarize any potential column writers who want to reply about how homosexuals force their lifestyles on the rest of you. However, nearing the end of my time at Trinity, I’ve realized that forcing my “lesbian lifestyle” on the rest of you is too damn good to resist. It’s just what we all deserve this Valentine’s Day. Gone will be the V-day gifts of a card made on printer paper in the five minutes before he picked you up, gone will be the gift of just sex with him (what a sacrifice!), gone will be the suggestion you play one quick game of Smash before heading to a lovely dinner reservation at Paesano’s.

Simply put: women are God’s gift to this world. You deserve to date a kind, beautiful woman. You deserve to see what it’s like to spend time around someone with basic empathy and communication skills. You deserve to date someone who has their own moisturization routine. It’s just the truth! St. Valentine was MARTYRED for helping heterosexuals get married. It seems to me this is a STRONG lesson to us all: let’s try another solution! For me, it’s lesbianism (hot!). For you, it might be bisexuality (love that look for you!). For heterosexuals, I’m sorry for whatever trauma happened to you to make you this way.

Give the gift of gay love this Valentine’s Day! I’m Maddie Kennedy, and I approve this message.