Hello my wonderfully loyal followers. Welcome back from winter break! The start of a new semester means new classes, a fresh meal plan, new bottles of much needed Jergens Natural Glow tanning lotion (thanks to that awful polar vortex), the intention to work harder, drink less, go to the gym more and explore new places in the city with your BFFs. However, with all these great plans for the upcoming semester, you have one major uncertainty: how to proceed with “that guy” from last semester. Maybe he’s a guy you’ve hooked up with a few times, maybe he’s someone you’ve simply been crushing on but didn’t have the guts to actually make a move on, and maybe it was something more serious that seemed to fizzle out over winter break. In any case, seeing this guy on campus will put you in one seriously awkward predicament.
The worst time this encounter could occur is during the school day. You roll out of bed, throw your hair in a messy knot on top of your head, pull on your sweatpants and Uggs – I might be the only person who still wears sweatpants and Uggs to college classes – skip doing your makeup and instead spend those few spare minutes indulging in a bowl of Lucky Charms. You head across College Walk to get to your first class in Hamilton when, low and behold, you run right into last semester’s hookup. You smile and say, “hey, long time no see…” then remember your current appearance. You internally panic (AH! My hair is a mess! Do I have gross cereal breath?!), while outwardly trying to keep your cool. I normally despise running into anyone I know during the school day on account of my morning routine described above, but being forced to make small talk with “that guy” about your boring winter break while looking like death is about as awkward as it gets. Furthermore, you’re still wondering where you stand with this guy and whether things will start up again now that you’re back at school. The whole situation is a complete disaster because you don’t want him to think you’re not interested, but you also don’t want to spend any more time than necessary being seen in your mid-morning getup.
Luckily for me, I hardly ever run into peers during the school day, probably because I tend to look down at the pavement while I walk so I don’t notice the people around me. It is much more common to encounter “that guy” on the weekend, at night, at the bars (cough cough Mel’s or Cannons). While you don’t have to worry about your appearance because you most likely spent an hour perfecting your hair and makeup which nobody will even notice due to the plunging neckline of your too-tight shirt, you still mentally panic at the sight of him. Normally in this situation, my solution is to pretend I don’t even see the guy unless he comes up to me. I spy him out of the corner of my eye, and continue chatting with whoever I happen to be standing with while making hyperbolic facial expressions in attempt to appear engaged in conversation. However, you should know that I am extremely single at the moment and am currently sitting at my desk eating an entire box of teddy grahams while blogging about my awkward life. To make matters worse, senior night is happening right now. Thus, perhaps using my go-to solution is not in your best interest.
If you want to pick up where you left off with this guy, you should probably just do exactly what you did to gain his interest in the first place. Walk up to him with confidence, greet him kindly, and see where the conversation goes. Of course, this is much easier said than done and can often feel forced or uncomfortable. Therefore, regardless of how you choose to handle it, you will almost always walk away from your first encounter with “that guy” this semester thinking to yourself, “That was awkward”.