Moving away from home, living on your own and trying to figure out the opposite sex pose difficulties to college students. But being a freshman adds another obstacle when trying to play the dating game.

"Freshman dating is difficult because we don't have cars, money or apartments," said Bryce Stevenson, 18, a freshman from Gresham, Ore., majoring in zoology.

Stevenson said often a lot of money goes into one date, and then students are left looking for other things to do.

On one date Stevenson took a taxi from Helaman Halls to Comedy Sportz.

More often than not, Stevenson said he just ends up playing games or pool in the dorm lobby.

"With no car it's hard to get off campus, so we just hang around the dorms a lot," he said.

Winter weather can provide cheap fun though, Stevenson said.

He once went bush jumping by the Marriott Center. When snow covers the bushes near the Marriott Center, Stevenson and his friends said they go out and jump from the sidewalk into the snow-covered bushes.

Sara Haws, 18, a freshman from Redlands, Calif., who has not yet declared a major, said dating as a freshman is different than she had imagined.

"I'm not sure what I expected dating to be like, but it's not that," Haws said.

Tunnel singing caught Haws off guard, and a date to D.I. was a new experience for her.

Haws said she enjoys the restrictions of on-campus freshman dating because it makes people be more creative.

"You can only go bowling in the Wilk so many times," Haws said.

Phoebe Papa, 18, a freshman from Grass Valley, Calif., majoring in dance education is having a different dating experience than most freshman. Papa decided to live off campus, which poses problems of its own, she said.

"As soon as guys find out that I'm 18 usually they laugh at me and then they don't talk to me anymore," Papa said. "But there have been a few exceptions."

Papa thinks part of the problem is the automatic stereotype that guys do not date freshman girls.

"I didn't live on campus because I didn't want to date freshman guys," she said.

Papa said she has never dated a guy her age because they are on completely different levels.

Although dating is sometimes difficult, Papa said she definitely likes living off campus better.

"I don't like how if you start to like a younger guy you have to write them on their missions," Papa said.

Copyright Brigham Young University 28 Feb 2002