Online dating: Erin Ye ’26 on treating dating like a job and confronting senior-year fears
In the latest installment of her “Senior Scaries” column, Erin Ye ’26 reflects on the anxiety and inertia that have kept her single through her time at Stanford and considers a new approach to dating: treating it with the same intentionality as a job search. The column, as written by Ye, mixes wry observation with candid self-reflection on why good intentions often fail to become action.
Ye opens with a revealing exchange with her mother, who compared dating to seeking employment. “You need to start treating dating like it’s the job market: you’re not applying to positions, you’re not interviewing, you’re not even doing things that you can add to your résumé,” her mother told her. “You just need to get out there. Think of it like getting an internship. Don’t worry about the return offer just yet!” The metaphor, Ye admits, was intentionally absurd but ultimately useful: it exposed a pattern of avoidance she has been reluctant to confront.
She traces that avoidance back to high school and through college. In high school she felt too nerdy to date; at Stanford her romantic life has been minimal. Ye recounts the familiar reassurance from a roommate—”It happens when you least expect it!”—and her wry, opposing thought: “That’s the problem. I am always expecting it.” That tension between expectation and passivity is a recurring theme.
Ye lists the common rationales that have justified her inaction—being too busy with classes, focused on career plans, or simply not interested at the moment. She also notes how group conversations can reinforce complacency: when friends agree that “Stanford men are the problem” and insist the women are “perfect as we are,” the message becomes that not having a partner is a conscious choice.
Yet Ye emphasizes that she is not unhappy. She writes that she has “the best friends and family in the world,” loves her studies and already has a job lined up after graduation. The issue, she says, is less about lack and more about allowing fear of rejection to dictate future possibilities. She warns against passive strategies—waiting for a love letter, relying on algorithmic matchmaking such as Date Drop and Marriage Pact, or expecting a match to make the first move—when one’s own actions are not aligned with internal desires.
Facing a post-graduation dating landscape that feels suddenly uncertain, Ye acknowledges the irony that Stanford may have been one of the most promising places to meet a long-term partner. But she stresses that envy of coupled friends will not produce results. While she hasn’t yet transformed her dating life into a rolodex of first dates, she closes with a mixture of humor and resolve: once she can devise a pick-up line “as good as my cover letter template,” it’s “game on.”
