When I was a junior in high school, I wrote a column for my school newspaper. “Guys suck,” my teenage self wrote in the Valentine’s Day edition of “Love, Life, and Lisa.” “Although this sentence should be self-explanatory, approximately half of Paly’s population will not understand it, given that they are male.”

In a brilliant burst of adolescent oversimplification, I went on to create four simple, PG-titled categories into which all males could be placed: dumb-ugly, smart-ugly, dumb-cute and smart-cute. As you might imagine, the line of guys standing outside my parents’ door tripled in size.

Never one to make snap, superficial judgments, I quickly dismissed the dumb-cute, dumb-ugly and smart-ugly groups. Thanks to my brilliant Darwinian instincts, even my high school self was too concerned with the future to date someone who could not hold up his end of an intelligent conversation. The trouble with the one remaining group, I explained, was that its smart-cute members were always unavailable in one form or another—if they weren’t gay, then they were, inevitably, in a rock-solid relationship, or, at the very least, on the rebound from one (again, wise beyond my years, I already understood the law of physics that dictates that objects on the rebound have a tendency to bounce more than once before returning to equilibrium).

I now find my teenage Carrie Bradshaw moment mildly amusing, but I also believe I was onto something a bit more serious: for better or worse, the column was my attempt to understand the relationships (and the lack thereof) in my midst.

And so it is that I present a Stanford-relevant update, alongside one disclaimer: nowhere in this column do I assert that all males fall into one of the following categories, nor do I reassert my initial claim that “guys suck,” though the latter is still up for debate.

To a large extent, Stanford’s admissions process does a good job of weeding out the lower end of the food chain in the “intelligence” category. However, as anyone who’s ever scored lower than 1600—I’m sorry, 2400—on the SAT will tell you, there are many, many different forms of intelligence (and no standardized way of accurately assessing them without leaving a number of smart children behind).

At Stanford, we are blessed to be surrounded by book-smart people. Trust me, the real world looks nothing like this. Even the fuzziest English major (i.e., me) can solve your average differential calculus problem, and, assuming “Freakonomics” and The Economist count, there are lots of well-read techies biking through the Quad. Where the Farm’s population falters, however, is in another realm of intelligence: the fundamentals of social interaction.

While waiting for a class to begin yesterday, I was privy to the following exchange between two typical Stanford kids.

“Where are you from?” one politely asked.

“Oh my god,” he shook his head emphatically. “I hate that question.” He spoke vehemently, spitting on her as he continued. “I’ve lived all over Europe, okay? I mean, like, all over. I really hate it when people ask me that.”

I’m not sure which universe this individual comes from, but the last time I checked, asking where someone is from is about as harmless and common as introducing oneself by name. This homeless (and nameless) individual has an SI, or Social Intelligence, quotient of zero.

Borrowing from my high school brilliance, I will assume that second axis on which we are plotting men—and, to be fair, women—ranges from mean and arrogant to nice and down-to-earth. (Obviously, when I used the words “ugly” and “cute” in high school, I was referring to personality). We’ll call this the Emotional Intelligence Quotient, or EQ.

Thus, we have four new categories or, as proof of my mathematical abilities, quadrants: low SI-low EQ, low SI-high EQ, high SI-low EQ and high SI-high EQ.

Quadrant one contains low SI-low EQ individuals such as the one from the above exchange. Seemingly oblivious to the acne scars and orthodontia that should have made him humble, he was not only arrogant but perilously unskilled in the social arena. My suggestion: put down the video console and strike up a polite conversation with someone.

Members of the second group are similarly lacking in SI, but their kind demeanor (high EQ) earns major points. To them I say: Location, location, location. Sweet Hall is less than five minutes away from the Lane Reading Room. Choose wisely.

The third and perhaps most dangerous horde of men is socially capable but well-aware that this makes them fairly valuable in Stanford’s relatively small, land-locked pond. Many of this group’s most notorious, high SI-low EQ denizens are also members of certain all-male organizations, and by senior year, even those who are not can be fairly easily identified as the future ibankers and consultants of Stanford recruiting. Pretend all you want, but no one here was that cool in high school.

The fourth and final illustrious group seems to have it all. To a certain extent, these socially capable, genuinely nice individuals may most exude Stanford’s smart and sun-kissed image. Sadly, as in high school, they’re unavailable. Being the picture-perfect people that they are, some of them have even managed to maintain a long-distance relationship beyond that first Thanksgiving break, and thus have been unavailable SINCE high school. In addition to this group’s old unavailability issues, there is also a new one: priorities. These are the people who say, “I’d love to talk/come over/meet you at the CoHo, but I have a problem set/program/paper due tomorrow/next week/next quarter and I haven’t started yet.”

There is nothing wrong with having academic goals; hopefully intellectual curiosity is what brought us all here in the first place. The problem arises when said goals take precedence over anything and everything else, all of the time. One of the most amazing and precious assets, if not the most amazing, precious asset, that Stanford has to offer is the people on its campus. Just like those incredible classes and world-famous professors, you owe it to yourself to make the most of them. Quadrant-jumping is possible, and the only way to do so is through new relationships.

Lisa Mendelman is a Master’s candidate in English who did not attend the Career Fair last Friday. Instead, she plans to make her post-Stanford fortune by marketing her EQ-SI formula. Interested investors should contact lisame@stanford.edu.