Dear Miss Lonelyhearts,

I was excited to be a junior until I realized that all the hot seniors who I was in love with all of last year have graduated. I never actually talked to any of them personally (I made out with one of them during Thesis Parade), but I get so sad when I go to the Paradox and they aren’t there, chugging Depth Charges and eating day-old bagels. How am I supposed to deal with this loss?

— Lost ‘em to the Laurels

Dear Lost,

Were you really so in love with that hot senior? Or were you in love with the Form of the Hot Senior? It is a truth universally accepted that the larger the age gap between you and the Hot Senior, the hotter they are. Don’t you remember how untouchably beautiful the seniors were when you were a freshman? Their outfits were resplendent! Their don’t-give-a-fuck attitude was so sincere, so deeply beautiful! The PBR they drank tasted better than the PBR you drink now! To you, they had no personality. They were a physical embodiment of all that is Mysterious, Sexy, Ironic(?), and Just Hipster Enough to be Cool.

The problem is, now that you’re a junior the seniors are practically your peers. You know them; you’ve rolled your eyes at them when they said dumb things in conference. The Form has been revealed to you, and you held its hair back when it was barfing in the canyon at Renn Fayre.

Not a pretty sight, is it?

Unfortunately, we cannot turn back the hands of time — cannot snatch the lau- rels from the heads of those we once thought were sexy. We can only hope that someday we, too, will be the Hot Senior for some bright-eyed little freshperson . . . and maybe take the bus over to Lewis and Clark and ogle their grad students.

Pondering the Form of the Advice Column, Miss Lonelyhearts