I’m sure by now all of you freshmen have done exactly what every other Pomona student, including myself, has done at one time or another: you’ve browsed through "the menu" in hopes of finding the man or woman of your dreams.

If you’re like the rest of us, then you also have closed that same view book, flung it across the room, and whiningly complained that there just were no hot guys/girls at Pomona and that you were going to be forced to remain celibate for the remainder of your stay here. Bobshua*, ‘05, for instance, was so astounded by the lack of dateable girls at Pomona that he admitted to giving his old high school girlfriend a call to see if she’d take him back:.

"Yeah, I didn’t really see anyone in my class that I could be seriously interested in. Although I feel really bad saying this now, I’d only broken up with my old girlfriend because I’d thought I’d be able to hook up with better looking girls here, but since that wasn’t going to be the case, I thought I should probably just get her back while I had the chance. Unfortunately, she had already hooked up with some guy at her school, so now I really do have a problem."

Since most of you freshmen are probably at this point in your Pomona "dating" career, I would like to assure you that there is hope. No, unfortunately Pomona College does not have a secret stash of hotties locked away in some obscure location who are let out once a year as a token of mercy so that desperate Pomona students can get their freak on. What you freshmen do not know, however, is that somewhere along the course of your four years here, when you least expect it, your normal vision will be invaded and overtaken by a seemingly unstoppable force that we at Pomona like to call "Pomona Vision."

We still aren’t sure what causes it exactly–perhaps it’s the result of our tired "booty-less" souls surrendering to the sad, sad truth that if we’re gonna get any at all in college, we’re gonna have to take what we can get.

"We just get desperate; we are so used to seeing only the people here, who, for the most part are not-so-attractive, that after a while we just can’t take it anymore. We just need that eye candy, so, pretty soon, anything starts looking good," said Salomi,’03.

Perhaps it’s just the loss of thousands of brain cells from the tons of liquor we consume every weekend that causes us to all of a sudden see that not-so-good-looking guy with the funky looking nose and a slightly annoying pitch to his voice in a completely different light.

Or perhaps it may be due to something even more serious. "Marv" Duyungan, a sophomore sponsor in Mudd-Blaisdell, believes that the reasons behind "Pomona Vision" boil down to just one thing: "Masturbation! It just gets so old, that after a while, you just have to lower your standards."

Although some may see "PV" as a blessing, others see it as the "beginning of the end." Sure, many may argue that ignorance can be bliss…and that’s exactly what "Pomona Vision" (PV) gives you, a distorted perception of the world around you in an effort to save you from four years of complete and utter loneliness and despair. It is, in essence, a sort of defense mechanism that allows you to hook up with other Pomona students and not feel somewhat short-changed. Wu-TangA, ’04, had this to say:

"My roommate and I had given up hope our freshman year, but then we went back through the ol’ viewbook my sophomore year and realized that we had overlooked some of the guys here who have real potential. Now my roommate is dating one of the guys we considered the second time around!"

Basically,"Pomona Vision" aims at getting you some booty by unconsciously lowering your standards. Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Well, it can be, if "PV" is used effectively. See, a lot of students complain about the lack of beautiful people at Pomona. Come on, let’s face it. If we had all been "beautiful people" in high school, we would have had better things to do than study and get good grades. We knew exactly what we were getting into from the outset.

RaynMan, a junior at Pomona, agrees with this concept, saying "It is unlikely that, given the population size and extraordinary intellectual potential of the girls here, there would be a large proportion of quote ‘good-looking girls’ here, plain and simple. And, although I didn’t think so last year, now that I’ve given it more thought, I think we do have a fair amount here, all things considered."

The reason we’re all here is because we have so much more to offer than our good looks (although some are blessed enough to have that too). We may not always stimulate each other physically, but intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally, we rock each other’s world. There’s a certain beauty in that. What "Pomona Vision" does that is so wonderful then, is that it allows us to give that not so good-looking fellow student a chance by deceiving our eyes for a moment.

Once we’ve given them the chance, we can’t help but be dazzled by the amazing person he/she is, and, before we know it, we’ve found our soulmate! And you wonder why close to 50% of all Pomona College alumni end up marrying each other. Coincidence, you say? I think there are higher powers at work here.

So, to you freshmen or anyone else out there who has yet to experience the wondrous powers of "PV," don’t be so quick to judge members of the opposite sex at Pomona because, chances are, the one person you will inevitably fall head over heels for sometime in the coming years, is most likely one of the many guys you readily dismissed when you took that first browse through the look book.

* Names have been changed for the sake of protecting the identities of the people who chose to put their future hook-up potential at Pomona on the line to comment on this article. If their true identities were to be revealed, they might not be "getting any" for a while and this, being a frightening thought to all of them, made them beg for anonymity. Because, they’d rather be getting "some," than none at all.