At this point, I’d had mononucleosis for two weeks and had been dating my boyfriend for about two months. Before my diagnosis, we were still in the honeymoon stage—always spending time together, gushing over how great the other was, blah blah blah. And then I got a sore throat, which quickly turned into coma-like naps and me sounding like a deaf muppet whenever I tried to speak. As I struggled to make it through my finals without falling asleep, he dutifully drove me to get lung x-rays and brought me soup or ice cream (the only things I could swallow) almost every night.

It was bad enough that I could barely stand up long enough in the shower to shave my legs, but, worse of all, we couldn’t even kiss, something we’d been pretty good about doing every day since we’d started dating. And when I fainted, I half expected him (as any sensible person would do) to cut his losses and stop hanging out with my ridiculously sick self. The self that had blow-dried my hair and spent 40 minutes choosing an outfit for our first date would have been horrified by my makeup-less appearance and constant need to blow my nose.

When the going gets tough, how are we supposed to react? If your relationship is still in its budding stage, the first rough patch is terrifying. You don’t want to seem like a burden, and you’re scared of losing the idealized version of yourself that you’ve cultivated for others to see. No one wants to be seen un-showered and half-articulate, especially by a person one is attracted to. It is terrifying to let someone get that close; no one wants to fall off that pedestal.

As scary as it is though, these inglorious moments are perhaps the most important and defining parts of your relationship. Why? Because if that person is still around at the end of the day, holding a box of Kleenex and a can of chicken noodle soup, it means that they’re in it for more than the put-together you that the rest of the world sees. It means that they’re cool with the totally unglamorous, unembellished and real you.

When I finally came around to full consciousness, my mildly terrified boyfriend spent the rest of the day making sure I drank absurd amounts of water and didn’t get out of bed. And while the fainting incident, as well as my whole mono experience, has now turned into something we joke about, there is a certain comfort behind the laughter in knowing that he was there to catch me. Because when the going gets tough, the tough don’t always get going—sometimes the best ones actually stick around.

But what happens in real life? What happens when saying those three words isn’t the end of something, but the beginning of something—of a real, vulnerable relationship?

What happens is panic.

This phenomenon is everywhere. In a hit show about meeting mothers, a ballsy television reporter runs up to her boyfriend to tell him how she feels, and instead of saying, “I love you,” he exclaims, “Falafel!”

Over Christmas break, my best friend, a beautiful, confident Red Sox fan with a mouth like a trucker, told me about the first time she said those fatal words to her boyfriend: She blurted it out by accident in the middle of a fight, and then ran out of the room, blushing, before he could process what had just happened.

What is it about saying the L-word that makes people so crazy? And why is it such a big deal when we do or don’t say it?

I can’t tell you exactly who is to blame for it. Authors with a romantic streak, overly sentimental songwriters and even our own parents and friends have loaded that one word with so much meaning that it is absolutely terrifying. If you’ve never said it before, it’s scary, because you don’t know how you’re “supposed to feel,” and if you’ve said it before, it’s overwhelming, because it makes you question whether getting this serious is worth the potential heartbreak.

What’s really a shame is that all the hype about saying it has ruined it for the rest of us—all of us normal folk who know what it’s like to care about somebody to the extent that you’ll kiss them even if they have mono, or bring them coffee in the library at 6 a.m. on the day that their thesis is due. All the craziness surrounding it forces us to attempt to quantify our feelings.

While you try to figure that emotional mess out, you don’t have to say, “I love you.” With the weight that it carries, it’s best to wait until you literally cannot hold it in any longer. And it brings with it a kind of vulnerability that can be almost painful to open yourself up to. I won’t deny it. But if that person were to be gone tomorrow, what would be worse: them being gone, or them being gone and not knowing how much you care about them?

If the amount that you care about them is enough to move your relationship from “I really like you” to “I love you,” there’s nothing better than hearing that person say the same thing back to you.

In the meantime, though, you don’t need to give in to the pressure. So just relax. Despite what people may tell you, it’s OK to be completely happy and at peace with the hand that’s rubbing your back at 2 a.m. as you’re trying to finish your next article.

I forget when exactly my boyfriend told me that his parents were visiting, but I do remember that we had only been dating for about a month, and although I responded enthusiastically, I was practically lacing up my running shoes (Julia Roberts-style). I prayed that his next sentence would be, “So I’m sorry if I’m not around a lot,” but instead I got what I should have expected: “Want to come out to dinner with us on Friday?” If his arm hadn’t been around my waist, I probably would have been off the couch before he finished the question. But since I was captive, I grinned and said, “Sure!”

When I told my roommate, she was ecstatic. She asked me why I was so nervous, and I exclaimed, “Because they’re his parents!”

We’ve seen it all—there are parents who keep you at arms length (because, after all, you are stealing their child away from them), and others who love you instantly and send you Facebook messages and texts. But no matter what experiences we’ve had or witnessed with our significant others’ parents, we have an inherent fear of meeting the people who raised our boyfriend or girlfriend. Why has everyone decided that “meeting the parents” is such a major event—it’s just being introduced to some new people, right?

Wrong.

Yes, our parents are those obnoxious characters who call us to ask about grades and bug us to book our flights home for Thanksgiving. But odds are that they have spent more time with you than any other person in the world. They know you better, they have dirt on you (including naked baby pictures) and they understand how you work, as much as you may hate to admit it. When a person is that big of a deal in your life, introducing the person whom you are seeing to them is a way of saying, “You are important enough to meet this person who made me who I am. You matter.” And deep down, all parties involved know this.

So maybe the fear isn’t just of meeting the parents. It’s the fear that comes along with realizing how much someone cares about you. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is willing to deal with that weekly phone call that will now incorporate the question, “So how are you and [your name here] doing?” Someone bringing you into their lives in such an intimate way, beyond the realm of dorm rooms and dates, means that they’re in it for the long haul.

As far as my “meeting the parents” episode, it went amazingly well; my boyfriend’s parents were welcoming, kind and tons of fun; we even went out again the next night. And honestly, things have only gotten better since then.

We’ll see how he does next weekend—did I mention my parents are coming in on Friday?

Personally, I have always made my own rules. I have always been a go-getter kind of gal. When I want something, I make sure that I exercise each of my mental, physical and social networks to obtain it. I used to apply this attitude to men. Guys were targets—objects to chase and (attempt to) seduce. If one ran away, I told myself that it wasn’t my fault for being aggressive—he was just too passive, and I would try again with someone else, this time in a more sassy and forceful manner.
But when I rented “He’s Just Not That Into You” this summer, I let Hollywood overrule my intuition by dictating my life in the romance department. The movie preached that if a guy had any bit of interest in you, he would do everything and anything in his power to make sure that you knew it. He would call you, he would ask you out, he would make the first move, and he would let you know that he wanted to date you.

At that point, it was as if someone threw a big fat punch and gave my “first-move” confidence a huge, gaping black eye. It was damaged. It was ugly. It was not going to heal for quite some time. So this was why I didn’t have a boyfriend? I didn’t want to be that girl.

For a while, I wouldn’t talk to guys at parties. I would wait until one approached me, and if he didn’t ask for my number within the first five minutes, I would walk away and tell myself that he just didn’t like me enough. I followed this rule rigidly and then pretty soon, I realized that I wasn’t meeting anyone. I wasn’t giving anyone a chance. I was afraid to go out, because if I made one false move, I wasn’t playing hard to get.

After conducting my own little experiment to get a boyfriend by barely approaching men at all, I have found that this end of the spectrum is also extreme.
For those of you gals that follow the “come hither or else…” belief religiously, I would like to pose a question to you. Are these general guidelines that we should follow, or is it silly to make rules for life? Is finding a partner about being strict, rigid and close-minded? Or is it about being open to exceptions and living life according to your own rules?

Maybe the movie’s concept is the ideal—don’t we all deserve to be chased? But that doesn’t mean there aren’t shy boys or guy friends who are afraid to initiate taking your friendship to the next level. That doesn’t mean there aren’t men who play games or think you may be too out of their league to ask you out.

Ladies, as the spectacular women that you are, you’re the stars of your own life movies—which means you are free to write the script however you darn well please.

So here I am faced with Rule One of Attraction: It’s unpredictable. Sometimes it feels so completely, maddeningly and suddenly random. You just never know when it’s going to hit. For example, one moment I’m in a New Zealand bakery ordering an almond croissant and the next I’m all weak in the knees for the boy behind the counter (yes, he makes it into my top five). I don’t know how people manage to function when faced with the constant risk of these sudden bouts of insanity. I mean, what do you do when unbridled lust strikes when you’re out buying your morning muffin? I immediately gave my number to that particular bakery boy, but that wasn’t necessarily the most judicious or prudent behavior. Learning to manage attraction with class is a constant effort.

I’d like to think of myself as a girl blessed with good sense. I’ve known a small collection of guys whom I would have loved to love. These were good, quality guys­—smart, sweet, funny and considerate—who would have made outstanding boyfriends. But I just couldn’t make myself be attracted to them. This conundrum leads us to Rule Two of Attraction: It’s unmanageable. Control freaks everywhere, prepare to have the reins ripped from your grasping fingers. You don’t decide who you’re attracted to; it just happens (or doesn’t happen) whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter how good looking or perfect some guy is; if the sparks aren’t there, you’re in for one icy cold night. You really can’t force it (believe me, I’ve tried). Unfortunately, there are two edges to this sword: Sometimes you are stuck being attracted to someone you’d rather not be attracted to. Pheromones can really be a pain sometimes.

But, as always, there’s an upside. For when powerful attraction meets with your good sense, the result can be simply spectacular. When, by some divine stroke of luck, you end up attracted to someone who makes even your most sensible impulses feel satisfied, the fireworks can fly regret-free. And that contented combination is so much better than anything you could have managed on your own. Rule Three of Attraction? It has the potential to be unbelievable.

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“Studying them can help us negotiate the tricky terrain of today’s sexual culture as well as give us insight into the social construction of sexuality and of gender,” she said.

According to junior Mythili Sanikommu, a member of the group in the class “Hooking Up: Healthy Exploration or Harmful Exploitation?” which studied juniors’ hooking up practices, upperclassmen’s sexual activity differs significantly from that of freshmen and sophomores in that it often involves more commitment.

“There’s a lot less random hooking up, and people are more careful about hooking up with their friends,” Sanikommu said. “They’re more often looking for relationships.”

Sanikommu’s group, which surveyed 137 students, found that 41 percent of juniors had not hooked up at this point in the semester, in contrast to a separate survey that found that only 22 percent of freshmen had not hooked up.

Juniors in the survey also said that they had different definitions of hooking up this year than they did as freshmen.

Of the juniors, only 11 percent said that “making out” was as far as they would go during a hookup, compared with 21 percent who set the limit at “genital touching,” 19 percent at “oral sex” and 38 percent at “intercourse.”

Looking back, however, some 20 percent of juniors said they would have only gone as far as “making out” during their freshman year, compared with 23 percent who responded with “genital touching,” 21 percent with “oral sex” and—in marked contrast—20 percent with “intercourse.”

The junior research group concluded that a multitude of factors influenced these trends in juniors’ hooking up, including solidified friend groups, moving off campus, creating an identity away from home, being 21 years old and studying abroad.

With regard to all but the studying abroad factor, juniors share many characteristics with seniors that influence their patterns of hooking up.

“Juniors and seniors are pretty similar,” Sanikommu said. “By the time you’re a senior you don’t really want to hook up randomly. You’re looking for something stable.”

According to junior Ashley Johnson, a member of the group in the class that studied seniors, seniors’ relationships also tend to move at a faster pace than underclassmen’s.

“It’s very different to be in a relationship as a senior than as a freshman, when you’re not quite comfortable in your own skin or in college,” Johnson said. “Relationships move faster with seniors—both emotionally and physically.”

A number of factors, including the imminent approach of graduation and the oncoming “real world,” were listed as factors contributing to seniors’ desire to pursue deeper relationships.

Concerning seniors’ hooking up, Johnson said that one of the defining characteristics of seniors’ sexual culture is that it lacks any defining characteristics.

“I think that the main point that we found in our research was that there is no trend, there is no pattern,” Johnson said. “Unlike the other grades—where you see different milestones that affect hooking up—there isn’t anything like that senior year.”

Instead, Johnson’s group found that seniors are more likely to have varying conceptions of hooking up.

According to the group’s survey of about 40 seniors, for example, definitions of hooking up ranged from “tongue in other person’s mouth for more than 10 seconds” to “making out and beyond—anything horizontal” to “anything sexual between two people, from kissing to sex.”

Ultimately, though, the class as a whole identified one characteristic common to hooking up among seniors, which seniors also share with the rest of the student body.

“The perspective that has emerged in the class is that hooking up is not intrinsically bad or good—it’s how the practice is used that makes hooking up a positive or negative experience,” Stiritz said.

“When hooking up is used as a form of sexual conquest, it is a potentially hurtful and destructive behavior,” she added. “When hooking up is used considerately as a form of mutual enjoyment and exploration, it has the potential to be developmentally helpful.”

This article is the second in a two-part series on Professor Susan Stiritz’s Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies class, “Hooking Up: Healthy Exploration or Harmful Exploitation?” Last week’s story discussed hooking up patterns among freshmen and sophomores.

Regardless, one issue presented in the film deals with Lohan’s character pretending to not understand a class she is in so she can be tutored outside of class by the guy of her dreams. While this led to further consequences, I couldn’t help but sympathize with Lohan’s character. Keyword: character; not actually sympathizing with Lindsay Lohan, since that’s pretty hard to do. After all, what are we supposed to do when we want to spend time with that attractive individual in our class outside of class? How do we win that special someone over and find out what he or she is really like outside of an academic setting?

Let’s say you are in a small class, and in this class there’s that good-looking guy or girl you want to talk to, get to know better and, if there’s chemistry, spend time with outside of the classroom. Hopefully, your professor will encourage class discussion and maybe even small group work. If so, do everything in your power to try to work with that person.

You can even just walk up to them one day and say, “I really liked what you said about…” or “What you said about this or that text was so interesting.” It’s as simple as that.

A compliment always proves helpful in the game of love, and this can easily lead to a bond and an excuse to work together. If you don’t actually think what that person says is interesting, either move on or, if you are just that attracted to that person physically, find some other compliment. Just don’t be overly maniacally friendly, and never refer to anything you see on that person’s Facebook, even if you do stalk him or her daily.

If you find yourself in a large lecture environment and notice that cute guy who comes to class every day, you’ll know that he probably cares about schoolwork, which is always good. Though it may be hard at first, sit next to him one day. Flash a charming smile, and you can even ask to borrow a pencil/pen/piece of paper. Just don’t let him look in your backpack to see that you actually have one and are just asking to initiate conversation, because then he may think you’re crazy.

Another tip is to try to talk with that person after class. That is, if you and a friend grab lunch and happen to see that cute girl sitting with her friend, it is more than all right to walk up to her, say hello and make a comment about that day’s class, like how boring it was, or laugh over an absurd comment some other student made in class. Eventually, if love is in the cards, you guys can start eating lunch together. Given time, this can lead to hangouts off campus.

If you want to take eating lunch together to the next step, tell that person that you guys should make a time to hang out that weekend or go out one night. It can be said causally, while simultaneously allowing you to get the message across that you’re into him or her. You can also ask that person to study with you, since group studying is both fun and productive—well, sometimes. More importantly, this is a nonchalant question, and a study date could with time progress to romance. All you have to do is communicate.

So the next time you want to pull a Lindsay Lohan and are tempted to pretend to be stupid just to have that special someone tutor you, don’t. After all, playing dumb probably won’t work—we are pretty bright kids. Just remember to be yourself, talk to the person you’re interested in and if it’s meant to be, it will be.

Ibby’s Bistro, the newest addition to the Bon Appétit family here at Wash. U., features a full-service dining option conveniently located in the Danforth University Center (DUC).

Perfect for a night out with friends looking to spice up their meals and escape the crowded, long lines of the main food center of the DUC, the bistro is especially perfect for a couple seeking a romantic date. We set out to truly get the “dibs” on “Ibbs.”

Upon walking into Ibby’s, the Asian Feng Shui feel of the restaurant both surprised and delighted us. Classy and elegant, yet simultaneously modern, Ibby’s décor provided overall sensual, inviting tones. Red, modern lighting helped create the sensual yet cozy intimate sentiments and elegance of the bistro; exactly what you would expect form a date restaurant. The extremely friendly and courteous host of Ibby’s greeted Meredith and me, as he led us to a booth nestled between two other booths filled with people. While the booths are indeed closely spaced, this allowed for mingling with other diners at the booths next to us. However, if you are looking for a more secluded dining experience, the tables will provide just this.

Upon sitting down, even before we were greeted by our server, a lovely couple next to us spoke their praise for the restaurant to us. Also first timers to the restaurant, they were very impressed with their dining experience and agreed that it is a perfect place for romantic dates, but that it also welcomes groups of friends.

Essentially the only drawback to eating at Ibby’s is the actual food price, as the food is definitely on the pricier side. While an entrée and dessert usually go for 18 dollars, a meal complete with a glass of wine, an entrée, dessert and a starter can run up to 35 dollars. The nice part about this is the ability to pay with one’s own meal points, and yes, checks can be split. Be careful with this option while on a date, though. Going “dutch” is an issue unto itself. But what the card option means, in other words, is that you can now get your parents to—unknowingly—pay for your date. This is perfect if you are a little short on cash, but just scored the date with that hot girl—or guy—from chemistry class.

The standard eating time at Ibby’s is an hour, so if you are in a small group or on a date, give yourself about an hour minimum to enjoy your dining experience. You may want to plan out even more time than that, considering an on-campus date removes any chance of talking before or after your meal.

Ultimately, Ibby’s will definitely satisfy any student looking for a quiet, intimate dining option or a friendly, entertaining night out with friends. To say the least, it is a huge step up from Bear’s Den. While it was really never okay back in my days as a freshman to go on dates at Bear’s Den, with the addition of Ibby’s there is definitely now no excuse to continue going on dates to Bear’s Den. In fact, one of the great things about Ibby’s is that students now have easy access to a nice restaurant without a car. This means that you now have no excuse for not going to a nice dinner on a date.

So grab your friends or boyfriend/girlfriend and head to Ibby’s soon to discover for yourself the dibs on Ibby’s; you will be glad you did!