freshman goggles

Similar to beer goggles. When you are a freshman (in high school or college) and everyone you meet is new and exciting, you think that people (especially of the opposite sex) are attractive, nice and/or interesting when they're actually aggressively mediocre in hindsight. Although this phenomenon is worst in high school freshmen and can actually lead to mistakes that impact the rest of one's high school life, upon acceptance to college the high school senior immediately forgets everything they learned not to do and proceeds to make the same mistakes as a college freshman (although freshman goggles usually fade within a month or two in college, while a high school freshman may wear their goggles for the entire year).

September, high school senior: "Ugh, Rafael is coming back for alumni day this week. I really don't want to see him again."
Emma, high school senior: "I can't believe you actually liked him."
September: "I had freshman goggles. I can't believe I was ever that stupid. By the way, have I told you about Dylan?"
Emma: "No?"
September: "Yeah, I met him online! We both got into the same program at X University. This is him. He's cute, isn't he? We talk like every day and we're making plans to meet up before school starts and..."
Emma: "And the cycle continues."