In Social Media Editor Idris O’Neill’s utopia, Barnard’s dining points and Columbia’s dining dollars would be equal and Joe Coffee would accept said forms of currency. We’ll settle for finding a dining dollars daddy for now.

Imagine: you’ve been in Butler for six hours (and yes, we know it’s the beginning of the semester) and you are craving a cold brew. Despite being a Barnard babe, thus loyal to Milstein, you’ve chosen Butler for the opportunity for late, late night studying and solitude. You know you would never run into your friends here because you would never befriend the type of people who actually like Butler. You leave the stacks, finally, and decide to go down to Blue Java for a quick caffeine-infused study break. You realize, as you descent downward, you’re going to have to spend real, actual dollars–at least three of them–just for coffee. Primitive. Let’s explore your alternate options, i.e. finding and keeping a dining dollars daddy:

  1. Proposition one outside of EC. This method kills two birds with one stone, getting an EC sign in and some fake cash. If you flirt heavily enough with the Men of EC for sign in, you can snag their numbers and text them when you need a casual swipe at Blue Java or Cafe 212, or wherever you’d like really.
  2. Use Tinder for what it’s meant for: exploiting men. Personally, my bio on Tinder uses obscure emojis, with which careful decoding and emoji expertise, roughly translates to “Please don’t message me if you won’t give me your money.” I set my age limit to 18 to 24 (accounting for grad students, too), my distance to one mile, and only swipe right on Columbia students. Some of you already have those settings but haven’t taken the next step in acquiring their sugar.
  3. Phone a friend. If you don’t have friends in CC or Seas, I will dedicate a separate post for you. Instead of asking to grab lunch at Ferris, set up a date at Cafe 212 and ask them to get the boba with the promise of you getting the next one. (Don’t get the next one.) This is the perfect way to get just okay boba for precisely zero dollars and minimal effort.
  4. This is a more elaborate plan, but actually start dating a Columbia student. It’s restaurant week, as in the perfect time to take someone for a pretty good meal. Romance them the way that you would never be expected to under the tyrannical reign of Columbia hook up culture. Then, after you’ve got them hooked on you, start having more casual meetings on campus, but exclusively places which accept dining dollars that I couldn’t name for you because I don’t have the proper currency. Hopefully you will have secured the sugar you want for days to come.
  5. Come to Lerner 510 on Sundays at 9 pm and demand the CC students compensate your membership in Bwog with dining dollars. This is the only legitimate advice on this post. See you there!

all of this for some sweet caffeine via Wikimedia Commons