Last week I included the Goshen dating board game, which I am sure baffled many first-years.  What is this Goshen dating, you questioned.  Does this Goshen dating exist?  Is Goshen dating like Santa, where everyone tells you it is real, and then several years later they crush your soul and belief in all things magical and wonderful?

Well, wonder no more, foolish first-year, for Goshen dating is real, and denying its existence just makes it angrier. One couple denied Goshen dating existed 20 years ago, and they are still Goshen dating today.  It is a sad tale: whenever any form asks for their marital status, they must circle all choices and add an enormous question mark.

There was not always Goshen dating at Goshen College. Once upon a time, people dated normally.  In 1896, during Goshen’s second year as an institution, a group of friends played a prank on Paul Menno Miller-Yoder. They sent him romantic letters from a secret admirer, trying to trick Paul into believing that someone was interested in him.  Well, they chatted for years through the mail (the postal service used to be rather slow, a total of seven letters were sent).  Paul tried many times to define the relationship, but with no luck.  After carrying on this long distance relationship for nearly a decade, Jim finally proposed to the secret admirer, only to find it had been his friends pranking him the entire time.  It was then that Paul put a curse on Goshen College, vowing that before any couple should start dating, they too must go through an incredibly weird, and awkward period of not knowing whether you were Goshen dating, dating, just friends, or engaged. Goshen College has had the curse of Goshen dating ever since, although I should note that Goshen students did get a one year break from the Goshen dating curse during the 1923-1924 school year.

I tell you this tell not to terrify you, (though terror would be an appropriate response), but to inform you of the harsh dating realities here at Goshen.  Once you accept your fate, Goshen dating is easier to accept.  But where do we go from here?   Next week, dear reader, you shall learn not only to cope with Goshen dating, but also to conquer Goshen dating.  Until then, I realize you shall be lost souls wandering aimlessly. But fear not, for in one week you will know so much about Goshen dating you will beg to unlearn half of it.