When I was a little girl, I thought doors had feelings. The ones with peeling paint and duct-taped mail slots felt bad about themselves. The doors painted red, wearing golden handles were snobbish. I liked the door across the street from mine best. It had dark brown wood with patterned window panes, the kind through which you could only make out light and blurry figures.

I’ve worn the same two items of clothing to almost every hookup I’ve embarked on at the College of William and Mary. First, I adorn a black bomber jacket from H&M, one with too many zippers and too few pockets. It makes me look 10 times edgier than I actually am, and I like that because it signals to the men I’m meeting that I don’t need their validation.