Random Hook Ups – Not So Random, After All

One of the best things about being in college is the plethora of single men at your disposal. I went to a small private school before I stepped foot on my college campus, so the idea that there were thousands of guys that I hadn’t known since birth roaming around made me very, very happy. Finally! People who didn’t know everything about me/everyone I knew/what I looked like during my 8 year awkward phase!

I loved the idea of anonymity and the fact that I could meet a random guy and never have to see him again. It was a sense of freedom I had never quite experienced and one I decided to take full advantage of.

Then I learned one very important lesson: random hook ups in college do not exist.

One particular weekend I went home with a very nice lookin’ boy. He was in a fraternity that none of my friends were in/associated with, which was extremely appealing. We bunked up at his place, had a grand ole time and ended things the next morning with the obligatory phone number exchange (which I immediately removed upon arriving home… I didn’t plan on seeing him again, so why tempt myself during an inevitable drunk dialing situation?).

The following weekend, while out with some friends, we ran into some guys I didn’t know. I started pourin’ on the charm with the cutest of the bunch and we really hit it off. We ended up back at his place chowin’ down on some Jimmy John’s when his roommate came home and began regaling us with stories from his night…

Including one about my man friend from last weekend.

Turns out they were best friends. Hang out all the time. And, in fact, were having a joint birthday party the following weekend. Did I want to come? It was gonna be awesome! I haaaave to be there.

What were the chances? My school had 30,000 undergrads! These guys weren’t in the same fraternity or in the same year in school! How the hell did they know eachother?!

I left the next morning and returned home to tell my roommates about the not-so-random guy I met expecting them to sympathize. Instead, I was faced with faces full of shock. Turns out that the guy from the night before also happened to have just broken up with our next-door neighbor and a mutual friend of ours was in love with him.

WTF?

It turned out that not only were my hook-ups not so random, but actually became the talk of the town. (Note: This is even worse if the guy is ugly…careful with those beer goggles, girls!) I couldn’t avoid the stories…or the boys. They were suddenly everywhere I went – in my classes, at the bar, at UHS when I went there to stock up on my birth control….

I learned the hard way that college campuses feel like huge places, but it only takes a little time (and some late nights) to make them very, very small. Beware, ladies, of the random hookups. They are never what they seem.

[Photo courtesy of collegeotr.com]