The sequined crop-top you borrowed from your roommate seems to be missing a lot of sequins, the rumbling music seems to slow to an unearthly pace, and your old buddy tequila has come out to play with your nervous system. Suddenly, you realize that you’re fighting the overwhelming urge to shove your face into someone else’s—preferably a face with tolerable breath and adept lips. Scan the room, what do your options look like?
1. Mystic Man
Apparently this frat house forwent paying their electricity bill and decided to invest in more Natty Light. Your ability to see and evaluate your potential hook-up partners are restricted by a lack of any lighting in this rager. But your determination is invincible, and you go for the one who keeps gently grazing your behind. You never really see what he looks like, and he doesn’t make much of an effort to say anything to you. You forge ahead, and later, you tell your friends that he was probably Gerard Butler in the flesh.
2. Saliva Savant
Your well-intentioned friend hip-checks you into a lonely guy looking for a dance. You seem only to be dancing with him for a solid seven seconds before he flips you around and jerks your face towards his. Your mouth is met with a sensation that can only be comparable to the monsoon season of West Africa. His tongue feels like an unhappy eel stabbing parts of your mouth, and you are unsure how to reply other than flailing and thrashing. You yank yourself away from a Triton grip, and you’re left moping over the fact that he completely licked off the make-up on the bottom half of your face!
3. Michael Cera Model
Your situation doesn’t exactly fit the Superbad plotline, complete with a skinny, shy white boy and some inopportune vomit, but spotting the smart boy from accounting 102 at your local KappaSig could turn into something very fun. It’s likely you won’t be able to stop yourself from blurting, “Hey, you’re in class with me!” and making a record for the most unoriginal pick-up line of the night, but you don’t need to take extra lengths to impress him—that’s his job. Next time you see him in class, if all goes well, maybe you’ll shyly make eye contact and giggle, or maybe you’ll sit together and laugh over Friday night’s antics.
4. Floorcest Fiend
He’s that random guy from down the hall who knows your roommate in some convoluted way or another. There’s nothing particularly interesting about him, but you figure you should be semi-nice to him since he does live on your floor. The decision, to be friendly, seems to be a beneficial one. Until later when your friends convince you to pity dance with him at some random gathering and you find yourself getting more than a dance—you get rumors spread about you because this dude exaggerates about his time with you.
5. Athlete Archetype
He’ll let you know that he plays (insert any athletic team) for the school within the first thirty seconds. This is his attempt at a conversation. You didn’t really catch the details of his athletic career, but at that moment, it’s not really important. He stares at you a little blankly when you use words with more than three syllables, but you’re able to look past that for the sake of his toned arms. Or maybe he is smart, and you’re wrongly assuming he is his stereotype—either way, he doesn’t really matter to you and you’re still going to brag to your friends that you got your hands on a rugby, soccer, or whatever player.
6. Fratboy Fathead
You caught him stealing glimpses at you while he was busy pretending to chug the room temperature beer, in the corner, with his mediocre-looking brothers. He staggers over to you with a smirk and a neon beach tank that warns you to stay away. But you can’t turn down free beer, and you especially can’t turn down a man who’s so desperate to constantly prove his masculinity to you. Alas, you let him wrap his arms around you while making persistent advances to move you up to his room. Later, you’ll come to this house again and you won’t be able to tell him apart from the other beer-soaked fratheads.
None of these foolish encounters really come back for long-term consequences, and they don’t turn into anything seriously worthwhile. In fact, the most joyous thing about these guys is their fleetingness. You are momentarily absorbed in the heat of the moment and the torridness in the lack of personal space. Then, it passes.