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Wellness > Sex + Relationships

The “Hook-up at School” Guide: From Lab Partners to Laundry Room Run-ins

After creating the “Hook-up at Home Guide,” providing sound advice on which guys from your hometown to attract or avoid while home from school during the summer, it seemed only appropriate to apply my professional guidance to your home away from home: the college campus.
 
After detailing stereotypical guys you will inevitably encounter on campus, each will be rated with cute faces that will guide you to the right decision for the timeless dilemma: to hook up, or not to hook up? Just follow these simple ratings and you will navigate the extremely tempting pool of eligible college men with ease:

  • Ticking Time Bomb: Going to probably blow-up in your face, so save yourself the trouble while you can.
  • One Time Thing: Strictly convenient for a random lonely night, so use discretion.
  • A Gamble: Will most likely get messy as the semester goes on, so establish boundaries early to make sure you are on the same page.
  • Good Luck: Go for it but keep it carefree, fun, and casual.

 

The Guy You Always Borrow Detergent from in the Laundry Room
 
You are hanging out in the laundry room and waiting for the last five minutes of your washing machine cycle to finish, when He walks in. There is the brief hello and lending of Bounty dryer sheets, and suddenly you can’t resist how strong he looks while he hoists his heavy laundry bag over his shoulder (or whatever turns you on while doing laundry).
 

I don’t know about you, but this is my laundry-day outfit.
 
We have already highlighted how great the laundry room is for meeting guys, and admit it:  everyone has fantasized about hooking up along with the sweet vibrations of the spin cycle, but nobody wants to be known as the Washing Machine Minx. If you simply can’t resist the appeal of the laundry guy, I suggest grabbing his hand and leading him somewhere your RA can’t walk into at any moment.
 
Rating: 
 
The Lab Partner
 
Everyone looks sexy in those big plastic goggles, and especially with that deep red line you get on your forehead afterwards. It’s pretty much impossible to resist a man who can handle his chemistry (in more ways than one! bada boom), and working with the same partner for an entire semester means you get really, really, close.
 

Exactly how frequently is periodically? Because I have problem sets due on Tuesdays.
 
Assuming your lab partner is a mouth-watering piece of man meat and not a pale gangly kid who is afraid to talk to you because it might “disturb the experiment” like mine was in high school, the sexual tension might get pretty intense as you repeatedly turn on the Bunsen burner. It would be wise to wait until the semester is almost over to make your move in order to avoid the awkwardness that will inevitably ensue in class – and this basically applies to any guy you regularly sit next to and talk with in class, Chem 101 or not.
 
Rating: 
 
The Jock Down the Hall Who Only Wears Sweatpants
 
“He has so many friends, so that must mean he is friendly!” or whatever naïve statement you say to yourself as you admire his biceps on blatant display, his five-o’clock shadow because there’s simply no time to shave with his schedule full of practices, and his constant entourage of loud bros.
 

“And every last inch of me is covered in hair!”
 
Typically, jocks enjoy fulfilling their stereotype on campus, like trying really hard to be “funny” in class, and actually doing ridiculous clichés like carving notches on their bedposts to show how many freshmen they hooked up with last weekend or whatever. Despite how sincere and special your new friend seems, locker room gossip is not an urban legend and don’t be alarmed if one day you walk into the dining hall and the entire hockey table starts chanting your name. Not that I know anyone that has happened to…
 
Rating: 
 
The Guy Who Always Asks You to Dance at Parties
 
There’s that one guy who you are always friendly with when you see him out: he’s nice and cute and has funny friends, and he even has a little rhythm. Whenever that great song comes on at parties you can’t help but dance to, he grabs your hand and you run onto the dance floor and go crazy for four minutes and then when it’s over you are a lot sweatier but still completely platonic.
 
Eventually, he is going to be extra drunk or extra adventurous, and make a move on the dance floor. You might casually laugh it off the first time and pretend like it was supposed to be a joke, but then the next time you are also feeling a little more drunk or a little more adventurous…
 
Rating: 
 
Follow this simple guide as you encounter new and interesting men on campus and you will have a semester jam-packed full of excitement that’s laced with just enough common sense to make yourself proud.
 
Picture Sources:
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Teri Hatcher
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Joanna Buffum is a senior English major and Anthropology minor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.  She is from Morristown, NJ and in the summer of 2009 she was an advertising intern for OK! Magazine and the editorial blog intern for Zagat Survey in New York City. This past summer she was an editorial intern for MTV World's music website called MTV Iggy, writing fun things like album and concert reviews for bands you have never heard of before. Her favorite books are basically anything involving fantasy fiction, especially the Harry Potter series and “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” by Susanna Clarke. In her free time she enjoys snowboarding, playing intramural field hockey, watching House MD, and making paninis. In the spring of 2010 she studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, and she misses the friendly, tall, and unusually attractive Danish people more than she can say. After college, she plans on pursuing a career in writing, but it can be anywhere from television script writing, to magazine journalism, to book publishing.