We are now over a month into the school year, meaning we’re comfortable in classes, we know the best places to score a good meal, and we have well-established crushes. If you are like me, the fifth-floor cutie with the booty has no idea you’ve been on their Facebook page every day for the past two weeks. Well, it’s time to do something about it.

I know letting someone know you like them is more stressful than your first presentation in speech class, but no one ever got what they wanted by hinting at it. “Hey, I like your Adventure Time backpack” in no way means “I want you.”

Since we first joined the dating game, everyone from our friends, to our teachers, to the media has been telling us the rules of getting together. Ignore everything you think you know about the rules and make your own set. There is no formula for who has to ask out whom and where an appropriate place to meet someone is. If you find yourself over-analyzing something, there is a good chance you are setting yourself up to fail.

If you are too busy trying to figure out the rules of dating to ever do something, someone is going to step up to the plate and take what you’ve been pining for. If you want a piece of that action, either go for it, or quit whining about them when they are gone. I am not saying you should overtly state your romantic intentions to a person who hardly knows you. It makes everyone involved super confused and uncomfortable, but for Pete’s sake, stop writing wistful romantic posts on Emerson Confessional and lay some groundwork. Anonymously posting that you hate being single does not make you any less single. It might even make you more single.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I’ve been giving this advice to my friends for years, and every time, someone asks me if I’ve ever had the guts to do it myself. I have to admit, I too have done the over-analyzing and I-should-just-give-up junk.

The few times I have actually put my money where my mouth is and gone for it, I’ve never regretted it. I once ordered a hundred pizzas in a month just so I could see the cute delivery guy. Every time he would come up to the door, I’d debate asking him out. Then I’d chicken out and just pay for the pizza. Finally, I got sick of paying for so many pizzas, walked into Pizza Hut, and asked him out. The funny thing was, he said yes.  

The best advice I have gotten was from the adorable kid’s movie, We Bought a Zoo: “You know, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just literally 20 seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The worst that can happen is the other person isn’t feeling it and you sob into a bucket of ice cream, but is that really a bad thing? On the flip side, you could also have just asked out the single greatest person you will ever meet who changes your life for the better. More than likely, something in between will happen, but I think the rewards outweigh the risks.  

The moral to all of this isn’t that you need to date. It’s that if you want to date someone, quit being a pansy and go for it.