You’re ready to start the new semester! A beautiful planner you’ll use infrequently? Check! Finally going to tackle the requirement you dread? Check! Cutting your drinking down from four to three days a week? Check!
The perfect sex buddy relationship you’re going to ruin by mid-semester? Check!
The beginning of the semester is the perfect time to start a new relationship to which you’ll soon be too stressed to commit. I hope to give you all the tools you need to start this new affair: where to meet your partner, how to mix signals and confuse both parties, how to best drag out the crash when you realize you actually kind of hate them.
Oh, you don’t have a shortlist of waiting partners yet? Don’t worry, even though you’re already behind. As long as you put in the work, you won’t completely fail. (That sounds like what every professor tells you when you switch into a class two weeks into the semester. They’re lying. I’m not.)
There are really two traditional tracks you can take to find the fuck buddy of your most underwhelming dreams.
The drunken encounter is the easier option, but it carries a lower success rate. Pick your poison: Hideaway, Loco or any fraternity basement. Make out with the first willing participant you find chugging a Keystone on the dance floor. It is vital that you know their name, so try to find a second to introduce yourself before you move to a non-public, or at least less-public, environment. But most importantly, slip them your number by the end of the evening so you don’t have to do the classic Facebook stalk and awkward message.
This tactic has two main pitfalls. Firstly, drunk goggles are real and intoxicated hookups are not always safe hookups. Remember that you don’t need alcohol to feel confident enough to make a move, and always check in every step of the way.
Secondly, there is no guarantee you’ll have anything in common. Worst case scenario, they’re an engineer. Pillow-talk for the rest of the semester will be based on them telling you “You probably won’t understand, so I’m not going to try to explain.” Maybe ask them what college they’re in or what their extracurriculars are before you get intimate.
The study buddy option typically has a bigger reward but also carries more uncomfortable, and possibly grade-lowering, risks. The clear strategy is to come to class as late as possible on the first day, scope the room and sit next to the most attractive person in the room. After fifty minutes of the professor explaining why attendance is important and how a curve works, turn to them and say “Wow, this seems super hard. Do you want to study together?” Okay, maybe not in so few words (and don’t forget to tell them your name), but that’s all there really is to it. If you’re successful, numbers will be exchanged and you’ll be well on your way to mediocre sex.
This is where it gets difficult. Compared to the instant success of the drunken encounter, the one-to-three week waiting period for the study to sex transition can seem endless. Just hang in there! Start by asking them class-related questions only. Slowly start to ask them their plans for the weekend or sending them memes only slightly connected to the material you’re studying. Then, when that first prelim approaches, ask them to meet you at Mann for an hour or two to learn every concept you never tried to understand over the preceding weeks. Over a Manndibles coffee invite them to a non-class-related event. If you have been putting in the work, they’ll say yes and the rest will be history.
The next step in either case is to make this relationship as confusing and awkward as possible. Consider not waving to them when you seem them on campus. It’ll make them question if they saw someone else, not the person they were sexiling their roommate for at 3 a.m. last night.
Another option, a personal favorite of mine, is to kick them out 15 minutes after you have sex so there is absolutely no chance for you to actually get to know each other. Don’t forget that asking them to get lunch and then cancelling last minute because you’re positive there will be nothing to talk about is a classic tactic. Whatever way you choose, the key here is to make them unsure of the direction in which this relationship is heading.
Don’t forget to drunkenly text or call them every weekend confessing feelings but include enough typos and mispronunciations to make it impossible to understand. This is also the best option when you’re trying to guard your heart from the strain of rejection.
After one to two months of general confusion, missed signals and passive-aggressive texts, you have to find the perfect way to ruin the relationship. Whether you make-out with another person at a party to which you specifically invited your fuck buddy, or ghost them for a few weekends and then hit them with the “Hey” text on a late Wednesday night, make the ending as painful and unclear as the relationship itself. If you’ve done your job correctly, the “break up” will take almost as long as the time you actually spent semi-happily hooking up. No matter what, second-guess your decision three or four times so you spend almost the whole semester giving the hook up another chance.
The Uptight Tart is a student at Cornell University. Slutty Endeavors appears monthly this semester.