anyone here who could even hold a candle to him," says Claire W. Lehmann '02, who lives in the Dudley Co-op with her boyfriend. "In that sense I'm certainly not sad that I'm not dating a Harvard student."

Setting Up House

Lehmann only spent a single semester in Thayer Hall last year before moving to the Co-op.

She was in a serious long-distance relationship with a 28-year-old man who lived in Alabama. With her relationship looming so large in her life, Lehmann says she could never feel like part of life in the Yard.

"I wanted to move off campus because I felt somewhat disconnected with the Harvard community in general, mostly because I was seriously involved with somebody so much older and so far away," Lehmann wrote in an e-mail message.

Many of the traditional bonds that link first-years together--asking a date to CityStep, going out with boyfriend and roommates--did not apply to her.

And because her boyfriend was so much older and so removed from Harvard life, she never strengthened those connections.

"My interests and general world-view were so dissimilar due to being involved with someone in such a different place in his life than your average college freshman," she wrote.