There is one word for the girls Lauren Silva describes: shallow.

While those girls are out stuffing their push-up bras and trying to pretend they have better things to do than AOL Instant Messenger, thoughtful guys like me are trying to hold on to that last bastion of hope that not all girls at Dream are just there for three free drinks.

In fact, just one block away from Dream there is a section for girls who can be bought, and those girls are called prostitutes.

“Don’t publish anything, Trevor. You’ll embarrass yourself,” one of my friends told me when I mentioned I was doing a column on dating for Valentine’s Day.

My original intention was to tell some of the funny stories that usually entertain my friends and make me sound like the lost cast member of Swingers.

Maybe one of Vince Vaughan’s mistakes was the fact he didn’t have an American Express card and the desire for a $300 bar tab.

“Nine times. You were at that bar and you called her nine times?” is a common question after a Saturday night in Georgetown and spending too much money.

Many people would like to think that situations like mine, in which you lose your sense of judgement and occasionally break the rules of the GW adaptation of the High School Dating Game, mean the end of a social life.

This is the game where you sit around at J Street and talk about girls like a bunch of 10-year-olds in a sandbox.

So what are the rules of the game? First you pretend the person you are interested is worthless and make sure you only call her once, and only after three or four days (two weeks if you are extreme) after receiving her number.

That is if you even use the phone. There is a suggested two-week buffer zone in which you instant message her on AOL every two days and act like you are just about to leave your room when you are really just walking over to the fridge.

Next, you have to be seen with your friends and acknowledge her presence but pretend like you forget her name.

Then finally you ask very nicely out of the blue to go to dinner and be very polite but very secretive. After about three weeks of doing that, you can start to have a relationship.

So it’s been three to four months and you’re dating. Have fun.

An alternative version of the game involves throwing parties into the mix and going “crash-and-burn” style. It all depends on personal preference. Just make sure you don’t take girls too seriously when there is alcohol involved, because if you expect them to spend time with you outside a party you will probably be disappointed.

I’m sure this is not true for every woman at GW – the majority of them probably want to be treated like princesses. But after receiving advice for three years of high school, these are the rules of engagement I have absorbed – and I’m sick of it.

The mistakes I have made are probably because I cannot follow those types of rules. Maybe I am just wrong and freshman life is not really that shallow.

It is really great to master a game, but in the end the game will be over and you will need to learn something new. It’s like playing poker – no matter how good you are it’s hard to make a living from playing.