Overlap happens, especially at a school as small as Tufts. It doesn’t take a Quant. Major to figure out that if you and your female friends hang out with boys from the same frat, sports team, or general friend group, there is bound to come a time when the laws of attraction will come up against those of girl code. So what do you do when you begin to crush on someone who one of your friends knows a little more intimately? Should you crawl into bed, dim the lights, and spend the rest of the week listening to Dashboard Confessional, while mourning the romance that could have been? Or should you take a page from South Park character Cartman’s book, and defiantly proclaim that “It’s my hot body, I do what I want”? And what if – God forbid – you find yourself in the inverse of this situation, and one of your friends is tempted by the forbidden fruit of one of your past flings (or flames)? Always the analytical pragmatists, Tufts students have come up with their own situation-specific DOs and DON’Ts for getting down with a friend’s former hook-up…
Next Page: He said…
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He said …
“A girl who a friend has hooked up with in the past is definitely fair game, but it’s probably fair not to hook up with her until the next weekend. It’s hard not to feel a little bitter if a girl you just hooked up with hooks up with someone else – you want to feel special. I guess I’d be a little defensive towards a friend who got with someone I’d hooked up with, and I’d lie off of the girl for a while. I would definitely give total freedom to my friends to do whatever they wanted with my past one-night stands, though. Now that my girlfriend and I have been broken up for a while and are good friends again, I don’t get mad or disappointed when she hooks up with other guys, but it was hard not to feel something when she got with other people after we first broke up.” – sophomore
“I feel like a month is a good amount of time to wait to hook up with a girl who a friend has slept with more than once. If they dated or something, you should wait longer, though. If their hook-up was more casual, like just a one-night stand or a total no-strings-attached situation, then I probably wouldn’t care too much about a friend hooking up with her. I definitely have different standards for different girls I’ve been with, but it pretty much varies from situation to situation.” – sophomore
“A girl a friend has gotten with is definitely fair game. I’d say to wait 24 to 48 hours if it was a random hook-up, but if it’s just a drunk night out – has she brushed her teeth since? If I wanted to hook up with a friend’s ex, though, I would ask first. The same goes for my past hook-ups – if a friend went after a girl I had a one-night stand with I wouldn’t care, but I would expect him to ask me before he went after an ex-girlfriend of mine. Obviously a one-night stand is much different than a relationship; if there were “girlfriend”/”boyfriend” labels involved, it depends on how good friends you guys are. I’d say two weeks minimum for that, but you should probably wait more like a month.” – junior
“I think whether it’s okay to hook up with a friend’s ex depends on the nature of their relationship: Was it a one-night stand, or have they been consistently hooking up? If it was a one-night thing, I think you have to wait at least until another night out, but if it was a consistent hook-up, you should probably wait until a couple of weeks after they stop. It’s situational on the other end, as well. If I had a consistent thing with a girl and a friend went for it while she and I were still hooking up, I would be pissed off. But if it’s just a random girl, I couldn’t give two sh*ts. There are definitely different standards, though – I would care much more if it were a girl who I really liked and had been with for a while.” – senior
“Whether a friend’s ex-hook-up is fair game depends on your relationship with your friend, and the relationship he had with girl in question. If a friend hooked up with someone I’d gotten with in the past, I wouldn’t do anything about it, considering she and I were finished. I’d probably just ask him how it went. If we actually dated, though, it would depend on how much time had passed, and how long we had been together for. I’d expect my friends to stay away for at least a month.” – senior
Next Page: She Said…
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She said…
“I think whether it’s okay to go for a friend’s former hook-up is totally dependent on what the situation was with the boy and the friend. If it was a one-time hook-up, then it’s fair game. If they had a thing, it’s questionable – if she ever liked the guy or got upset about him, you should stay away until she’s totally moved on. If a friend hooked up with someone while I was into him, I’d be mad, but usually I’m okay with it. I’ve hooked up with a few of the same guys as my friends and we just laugh about it.” – sophomore
“I’d say that if a friend only hooked up with a guy once and she made it clear it wasn’t serious, then he’s fair game after a few unsuccessful weekends. But if she makes it clear that she has feelings for him even after the fact, I wouldn’t attempt anything. I have yet to have a close friend hook up with someone I’ve actually cared about, but I think if it happened, I would definitely go talk to her before getting mad at either of them. I would care much else if a friend hooked up with an old one-night stand, but someone I dated would be pretty much off limits for a couple years, at least.” – sophomore
“I think whether it’s okay to pursue a friend’s former hook-up depends on a lot of factors. A DFMO at Fall Ball would require one week of waiting (tops!) but if my friend had she that she liked the guy before they hooked up, definitely longer, and if they were consistent, he may even be off-limits forever. If a friend just makes out with someone you’ve hooked up, with that’s kind of low, but not really bad. If they do more or wind up dating the person, trust me, it sucks, but you kind of need to blame both parties equally. That being said, I think the best thing to do is brush it off and try not to get that involved. With every hook-up comes different standards and expectations. A guy you hooked up with once and laugh about it with is fair game – I find it funny when one of my friends does the same. But ex-boyfriends and long-term hook-ups are hard to deal with, because it’s hard to see a guy you cared about with another girl, and when the other girl is a friend, it just makes things worse.” – junior
“Timing is not the issue, it’s how she feels about the guy. If she still likes him, then he’s not fair game, but if she is indifferent, I think you should just ask for her honest opinion. Generally though, I just avoid the situation all together – there are enough fish in the pond to avoid a good friend’s old hook up. If I never had feelings for the guy, normally I wouldn’t care at all if my friend hooked up with him, but it’s still nice if the friend double-checks with you beforehand. Of course there are different standards – one-night stands don’t involve the emotional attachment that comes with dating, so they should be treated differently. For example, I would not be mad at a friend for actively pursuing an old one-night stand of mine, but I would feel betrayed if a friend actively pursued someone I used to date or have an emotional attachment to. That would make me feel like the friend put approval from guys over our friendship. “ – junior
“I think it depends on the friend, what matters to her, and how strong her feelings for the particular guy were. Most of the time if a friend and I hook up with the same person I think it’s hilarious, and am most likely to high-five them. If a friend hooks up with someone I had feelings for, I’ll be upset, but I’ll usually get over it pretty quickly, as long as she is honest about it. Once a friend hooked up with my ex – who she knew had shattered my heart – the day after I asked her not to, and then lied to me about it for three months, even though everyone else knew. If she had been honest, it would have showed that she cared about our friendship, but, more than anything, I could never forgive her lying like that. It’s obviously better to be Eskimo Sisters through a one-night stand than an ex-boyfriend, but we all f*ck up sometimes – to me it’s more important that my friends “woman up” and are honest with me about it, so we can work things out and save our friendship.” – junior
Next Page: What should you do?
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Whether sober or drunk, infatuated or love struck, it seems as though the cliché phrase that “Honesty is the best policy” is the policy of many Tufts students when it comes to friends’ previous hook-ups. While it can be disappointing if you’re crushing on someone and are told that your access to them has been denied, despite what your sex-crazed, 20-something-year-old mind may be telling you, you always have other options. Hook-ups come and go, but friendships are generally longer lasting. And if you and your friends are cool with indirectly hooking up with one another, then go for it! After all, isn’t it encouraged to share with friends?
Photos courtesy of: hercampus.com, fox.com, cnn.com