Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Date Night

This is for those of you who will be brave enough to hurdle the biggest barrier to getting a date at Northwestern: actually just fucking asking someone out already. The journey from being the person who judges the couple holding hands while waiting in line for sushi to being the person who has a boyfriend or girlfriend to help you make fun of the couple holding hands while waiting in line for sushi can be long, strenuous, and very occasionally sexually satisfactory. The following guide will help immerse yourself in Northwestern’s insulated stultifying vibrant dating scene. Or at least help snag you a warm body to fasten yourself to during winter quarter. The First Date

Kafein: Good place for hipsters to grab a caramel turtle mocha and split a warmed up cookie. If conversation lulls, you can always heckle the townies doing stand up on Monday nights.

Bat 17: The sandwiches are big enough to show that you care. The red velvet cake is big enough to show that you really want to get laid. The downside of a date here is that you might be too full to make a move afterwards.

Cozy/Zoba: You know what really helps on an awkward first date with that pretty girl from your freshman seminar? ALCOHOL. Cozy and Zoba are both BYOB with generous, yet reasonably-priced plates of Thai food. But the alcohol is what’s most important here.

Brunch

Nothing is classier than taking a lover to brunch after an evening of PG-13 fun in SMQ. Plus, it’ll be a nice break from spending your weekend wondering what’s actually in the sausage patties they serve in Plex.

Le Peep: Serves delicious omelettes and combos (recommendation: lumberjack breakfast). As a warning, this place is crawling with hungover Northwestern students on Sunday mornings, so bringing a date here is basically like totally going Facebook offish. Bring your roommate leftovers as a thank you for finding somewhere else to sleep last night.

Walker Brothers: You need a car to get there and there’s a long-ass wait, but it’s worth it for the legendary pancakes. Bonus points if your date makes a Mean Girls reference at brunch.

Dixie Kitchen: For those of you who like to be drunk by 1 PM, Dixie Kitchen serves Bloody Marys and mimosas along with Southern breakfast classics. It’s also a great place if you enjoy getting drunk surrounded by 85-year-old women on their way home from church.

For Established Couples

At this point, you are sexiling your roommate on the reg, stealing your sniffly paramore soup from the dining hall, and even acknowledging each other on Sheridan Road. You may have even seen her without makeup (OMG). At this point in the relationship, you can relax until your boyfriend asks if you want to have dinner with his parents. Then bolt.

Pizza, wine, and Netflix: You’d be surprised how quickly a viewing of Best in Show can turn into a night of puppy love. #DoggyStyle

Lincoln Park Zoo: You know what’s more fun than seeing cute animals? Seeing them for free while strolling hand in hand with a loved one like a freaking Noah and the Whale song. For a post zoo lunch, try RJ Grunt’s or the Athenian Room.

Getting sloshed at a crush party and Instagramming every second of it: One of the first real trials for a Northwestern couple is how they handle the first morning they wake up together with debilitating hangovers. Crush parties are a great opportunity to throw back several jack and cokes and use the earlybird filter on dozens of photos of you and your beau dancing on an elevated surface dressed as Bugs and Lola Bunny.

A Chicago Sky game: Because you’re too poor for the Blackhawks or the Bulls. Also because gender equality.

Anniversaries

You are not in high school anymore. None of this "three month" anniversary bullshit. Luckily, your relationship probably won’t make it to the one year mark, because the two of your are sooooo busy applying for consulting internships, being on a DM committee, and not doing the reading for Intro to Russian Lit. Which is lucky for you, because anniversaries are expensive. And you work too hard sitting at the front desk of Blomquist doing homework to drop $100 on one damn meal. Enter God’s gift to college kids: Groupon.

Pete Miller's: At first it may be embarrassing when one steak leads to more orgasms in a night than you could ever dream of being responsible for. But keep in mind, that’s a hell of a lot of meat.

Lincoln Park restaurants: Remember when you wrote in your Northwestern application essay that you wanted to take advantage of Chicago? Anniversaries are great time to remember that. Try Geja's for fondue, Sapori Trattoria for Italian, or North Pond if you're really fucking rich.

Medieval Times: IT’S A FOUR COURSE MEAL AND A JOUSTING TOURNAMENT ALL IN ONE. DINNERTAINMENT. Take a cab or beg your one friend who has a car to drive you to Schaumburg for a magical and unforgettable night of chivalry. THERE WILL BE HORSES AND YOU GUYS WILL BE TOGETHER 4EVER AFTER THIS DATE SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL KEEP UPDATING YOUR WEDDING BOARD ON PINTEREST <3 <3 <3.

For Breaking Up

Let’s face it. You’re hot and 21 and he’s spent the past three weeks too busy catching up on Game of Thrones to come to your sorority’s philanthropy event (which raised a almost $130!!!!). There’s plenty of fish in the sea, or at the very least, plenty of Loyola kids on Tinder.

University Library: Not only is it too quiet for him to make a scene, but the library’s labyrinth of hallways make for a quick escape. Besides, their sadness will be indiscernible from the multitudes of suffering exuding from the stacks the night before an Orgo midterm.

Via Email: Sandwiched between an email telling her she got a D on the Econometrics midterm and another email letting her know she didn’t make Battle of the DJs this year, your news won’t seem as bad. Maybe put a few cat gifs in there to lighten the mood.

On Ryan Field during commencement: Because you’re moving to New York to work for Goldman Sachs and he’s headed to Palo Alto to work for a tech start-up.