We always hear about summer love and spring flings. But I say summer love is overrated, and spring flings are reserved for people traveling to Daytona Beach, Fla., for spring break. How about a new trend to kick off this school year? Falling in fall.

Fall and winter get the short end of the stick in nationally recognized catch phrases about love and lust.

I’ve had relationships start during summer and love bud in spring, but they never carried on into the fall. It may be because of my inability to possess any emotional connection-I am a “robot,” according to a former boyfriend.

But I’m hoping this semester will be different, as I get myself out of my robotic rut with a new fall relationship that I’m hoping will re-program my emotional circuit board.

I suggest, this year, skipping the fall and winter blues by occupying yourself with someone who will

give you a little tender love and care. Since you probably spend most of your time on campus, you might as well find that special someone while you’re here.

It was my sophomore year at Columbia and I was trying to balance school and some sort of social life, which didn’t seem as hard then as it does now. I walked into my Education, Culture and Society class, and there he was-my fall semester motivation.

I was absolutely smitten with this young gentleman, and I found myself more studious, more attentive and more concerned with exuding a cultured sophistication that I knew I didn’t have. I even found myself attending every single class just so I could gaze in his direction. It was the first and only time I’ve ever had perfect attendance in a class.

We never went out. I couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to him, let alone ask him out for a cup of coffee. Love, and even lust, can be a great motivator, and who needs more motivation than a student at Columbia?

One factor that can loom over our heads, especially since we’re in Chicago, are those inevitable winter blues.

“Seasonal affective disorder [or SAD] is a cyclic, seasonal condition,” according to the Mayo Clinic’s online website, a nonprofit medical practice that diagnoses and treats complex illnesses. “Usually, seasonal affective disorder symptoms appear during late fall or early winter and go away during the warmer, sunnier days of spring and summer.”

Fall and winter are probably the best times to find that special someone. Days seem longer, nights are colder and everyone looks a little sad, like they could use a little pick-me-up from the bitter weather outside.

Although the closest I’ve ever come to a fall romance was a few flirty glances from across the classroom, I’m trying to start this year off right with a new relationship that is hopefully more promising than a surface relationship with a boy in a class.

There is no way to avoid the bitter cold front that is on the horizon, but falling in love in the fall may give you that break from all the ugliness outside that comes with the changing of the weather, supposing you don’t have a plastic heart like my ex-boyfriend apparently thought I had.