To All the Harvard Boys I Crushed on Before

I have a thing for guys who went to Harvard. Not just Harvard, but other elite institutions of education too. I do not go on dates often, but I find myself sometimes more willing to give a guy a chance if he went to a prestigious school, like an Oberlin or Yale or William & Mary. I know this taste stems from my internalized classism and the faulty association between educational pedigree and traits like intelligence and work ethic. Yet, I still find myself in the process of unlearning and deconstructing my questionable taste in men.

The three men from Harvard I crushed on, in chronological order: the first, a hotline counselor at a rape crisis center who touted phrases like “restorative social justice” on his online profiles; the second, a med student whose research focused on therapies for postpartum depression; the third, a labor organizer who cares a lot about his mom.

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