1. Shopping period — The Yale administration wants you to think these two weeks have any educational purposes, but the dating connoisseur knows that they’re best spent getting to know your prospective classmates. Sit down, grab a syllabus and some phone numbers.

2. Climb East Rock — A walk through New Haven’s greatest park can really lift your spirits. (After all, our mother always said that when you’re feeling lonely, it helps to change altitude.) If you’re the outdoors type, try talking to everyone you meet, except for those funny runners.

3. Visit the secret gardens — Even better than the Rock. Every Sunday, handsome bachelors and parasol-toting ladies wander around the floral rows hidden within Edgerton Park. Good luck finding them.

4. Toad’s concerts — If you go to the Wednesday Night Dance Parties, you’re probably in a group that begins with F and ends with Rat. A much better idea is the wonderful series of shows this fall: If you can’t find your type at a Decemberists, Brazilian Girls, Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah, Kings of Leon or Leo Kottke show, you should find a different type.

5. Horowitz Piano Series — Then again, there are always those classical music die-hards. So while a potentially special someone is enjoying the masterful Emanuel Ax playing Bach, go ahead and make your move.

6. Newspaper Reading Room — What’s sexier than picking up a mate while scanning a back issue of Latvia’s “Baltic Times”? Interestingly, this Sterling hotspot has lately been big with cute gay guys.

7. IMs — You only need to these two magical letters to get you hot and sweaty. Everyone competes hard for their competitors’ attention (this holds especially true for Jacob Leibenluft, the YDN’s 5’4” Editor-in-Chief).

8. Barnes and Noble — If you are bookish, all you have to do is loiter long enough in your section of interest (poetry for the true Romeos) and talk to everyone you see.

9. Tuesday Night Club — Tuesday is the sexiest day to meet people, and Pierson is a sexy enough place to do it. Master G? Sexy.

10. YDN scene — We’re too good for capital letters, and we’re probably too good for you. But two of our three editors are single. And STD-free since 2003!