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Recently, I’ve been talking with people a lot about what I like to call the “Junior Slump.” The idea behind the Junior Slump is that girls who are single during their junior year encounter significantly more difficulty in finding a partner or partners than girls in other years do. There are a number of reasons for this, but all of them add up to an unfortunate situation; junior year can be something of a sexual peak for college-aged girls and the Junior Slump can put a serious damper on this peak.

Junior year is the year that guys start dating in earnest, meaning they are no longer interested in girls their own age, because they can finally get girls who are younger. This means that while the potential pool that girls can choose from tends to shrink each year (because how many girls really want to date a younger guy?), for guys it expands rapidly during junior year. Suddenly, seniors (and grad students) are sort of the only guys available to all those hot, sexually frustrated junior girls.

But the truth is that senior guys who are single usually have one of two goals when it comes to the pursuit of women. The first goal is to hook up with anyone and everyone, or at least that’s what it seems like. They’re looking for the last “Hurrah!” that college will give them and that means dating/sleeping around and making the most of the opportunities presented to them. The second goal is to date a senior girl, so that they have all the benefits of a relationship, but know that at the end of the year they’ll part mutually because they are headed in different directions.

They also might figure out how to make it work by finding jobs in the same city or some similar solution. By dating another senior, guys are able to eliminate a lot of the worry about what will happen to the relationship post-graduation because both parties will be in the same boat.

So you see, junior girls are sort of left out to dry. As I said before, I think junior year is sort of a peak for girls sexually, which makes it particularly sad that so many girls go unattended. By junior year, we’re settled into our routines and we have our friend groups.

We’re no longer worrying about how to write papers and take exams, or whether or not we’ll have people to go out with during the weekend. Instead, by junior year, we’re mostly focused on sex: having it, wanting it, getting it … you name it.

The stress related to other things in college that may have prevented us from fully enjoying sex before are now merely side-notes, and the pleasure that comes from dating, romance, lust, love and sex are more important. Also, a lot of girls turn 21 during their junior year, making it easier for them to go out to bars and clubs.

And so I wonder, can it really be that junior girls are really the odd ones out, or are there girls who aren’t my friends who are infinitely more successful in their junior years?

I know, although I did not go without sex for the whole of junior year (I even had a boyfriend for two months), it was definitely a slow year in comparison to any other year at Brandeis; and of course, I was more focused on sex that year than in any other year. Are junior girls sexual pariahs or lonely sex goddesses waiting to be found?