Hangover

U UP?

NBN’S guide to post-hookup etiquette

DAVID GUIRGIS

MISSED CONNECTIONS

Stories about the one that got away

ELIZABETH GUTHRIE

A NORTHWESTERN PARTY CONVERSATION FLOWCHART

How will your party conversation end? We can guess

NICOLÁS RIVERO

I’M TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT

NBN’s resident dad relives the freshman year he never had

ANDY BROWN

‘TIL THE BITTER END

NBN’s guide to post-hookup etiquette

STORY DAVID GUIRGIS // DESIGN SAVANNAH CHRISTENSEN

u up?

You’re probably at the point in your Northwestern experience where you’re beginning to understand what it’s like to get messy and deal with the aftereffects of taking someone home. Or, at least, getting really sloppy with them at Burger King. And there’s a good chance you’re not dying to see them again. Or hey, maybe you are, but you don’t know what to do about it.

So how do you figure this shit out? I gotchu.

Waking up in Plex single and realizing Waking up in a Plex single that you ~left an impression~ on someone and realizing that you *left an last night impression* on someone last night

It’s sometime in the morning and you wake up to find that you’re naked in someone’s bed with an ear-ringing headache. And you’re the little spoon.

Now that your head is somewhat clear and you’ve realized that, yes, you did in fact accompany someone home – and ew, they live in Plex – the first thing you need to do is assess the situation. How bad is your hangover? Was the sex good? Did you know them before last night?

Uh, is that your underwear hanging on the lampshade?

From there, grab your shit and run like hell. Or, if they’re cute, cuddle for a little bit before realizing you’re late for a group project meeting in Kresge, and then grab your shit and run like hell.

This general theory applies to anywhere on campus, but let’s be honest: there’s a huge difference between waking up naked in Plex and waking up naked to a lakeside view in 560 Lincoln. There will be no running like hell if you’re waking up in the latter. Enjoy your goddamn privilege.

Actually wanting to text your onenight stand during your Sheridan walk of shame

This is a no-brainer. You’ve shared upper lip sweat from making out in an offcampus basement. You’ve seen each other naked. You’ve broken the ice.

Text them. If they text you back, congrats, you’ve at least made a friend (and you know you’re not horrible in bed).

If they don’t, you’re not horrible in bed. I promise. It’s just that they’re not interested, or they’re going through

something, or they’re just not very nice. Either way, they no longer exist. They never happened, and you’ll survive and thrive.

Somehow finding time during Week 6 to develop feelings

This usually happens because you actually texted them back, and then they texted back, and now you’re friends. Except, you know, friends who hookup a lot and also drunk sext occasionally.

If it doesn’t work out, don’t press it. Unrequited feelings suck, but being led on while hoping you can change their mind sucks more. You deserve better. Ask them what “this” is, and if the answer isn’t “I’d love to call a spade a spade and label the friendship, deep talking and subsequent foreplay an actual relationship,” it’s not worth pursuing.

Running into someone who says they made out with you the night before and not initially recognizing them because BASEMENTS ARE DARK AS SHIT

Oh, honey. You went out on North Campus, didn’t you?

These situations are so incredibly messy that the only thing you can do is laugh it off and change the subject to literally anything else – midterms, papers, that time you got food poisoning at Lisa’s and the doctor at Searle basically told you to suck it up.

Talk it out as soon as possible. Everyone who has ever, in the history of this world,

said the friends-with-benefits thing won’t be awkward is lying. Talk. Sit them down for a shitty debriefing brunch at Allison (or a great debriefing brunch at Cupitol if you’re rich) and talk about it. Do you want to keep hooking up? Are there feelings involved? Was this just a one-night thing? Ask these questions and answer them honestly, so that way when these questions inevitably surface again, you have something to reference.

Some etiquette rules to consider on top of all this shit (because, you know, more things to worry about)

1. If you’re hosting, you should offer to let them spend the night. A 7 a.m. walk of shame is way more bearable than a 3 a.m. walk of shame.

2. You technically reserve the right to ask them to please get the fuck out. But don’t be an asshole.

3. If you’re just not feeling it, you can ask to cuddle, make out and go to sleep. You’ll know that they’re nice (and it’ll increase your chances of morning sex, which is the goddamn bomb).

4. Leave your hickies in places that are easily covered so Yiraida from Fran’s doesn’t coyly ask the other person about it a couple of days later. (Hi, Yiraida, I love you.)

5. If they fell asleep on your arm and it gets numb, they’re probably knocked the fuck out anyway so you can pull it out without waking them up. Maybe? If they do wake up, see my note about morning sex.

Bonus: Straight ladies! My fellow gays! If you really, really, really need water but you’re on the side of the bed facing the wall and he’s boxing you in, just quench your thirst by sucking his dick!

(That was a joke. Hydrate yourself. With, like, water.)

Editor’s note: These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

DESIGN SARAH ZHANG PHOTO YING DAI STORY ELIZABETH GUTHRIE

stella

So you know incoming freshmen all these group have chats. I ended up in a group chat with this one guy. We ended up talking a little bit over the summer, and we had a lot of the same interests. Boy’s really cute. At some point, I was rather intoxicated and let him know that

I thought he was very cute. And that turned into a weird summer of hardcore sexting. I remember one night where we were in a group chat, me and him and a couple other people got really into this discussion about environmental racism. So in one chat, we were talking about inequalities within urban areas. In another app, we were sending frisky pictures. He and I were talking a lot, so a few weeks before school started, I just got to Chicago because

I was doing a POP [pre-orientation program]. He was doing one too and was like, “Shit, you wanna go out for coffee sometime? I feel like we’d actually really vibe. You’re cool.” And I was like, “Definitely.”

Then I left for PWild, got back and got sucked up into all the Wildcat Welcome bullshit, and didn’t see him. I was just so busy. Then one night I walk into my common room, and he was there hanging out with some people. We said hi and progressively realized after just seeing each other around that we were just totally not involved in the same social scene whatsoever. I very much considered myself anti-frat, not a North Campus person to say the least. And he’s very much a North Campus person in the social scene, going to frat parties, hanging out with the athletes. We just have totally different vibes even though we have similar interests.

Now it’s super awkward because we never actually hung out. We don’t talk anymore, and I just see him around all the time because we eat in the same dining hall. It’s really weird, and we never know whether to say hi to each other or not. Sometimes we do and sometimes we ignore each other completely. Low-key though, I’d still smash, which is the worst part. ‘Cause again, boy is really, really attractive.” jake

I went to an AEPi off-campus party with one of my really good friends. I ended up making out with a girl. It was fun. It seemed like a thing and I got her number. I texted her, and just radio silence ever since.

Then I heard she got a kidney stone. But you know, we were all like, wait what’s going on? I asked the same friend I went to the party with that Monday what happened. He said, “I think that girl you hooked up with is sick.” I was like, “Oh really? Tell me what happened. I hope she’s okay. Is this something I should care about?” Then he told me it was a kidney stone, and that’s just funny ‘cause my house was built on kidney stones – I mean my dad’s a urologist.”

I partially discovered my sexuality on PWild and was helped in this discovery by another gay man whom we will term Joseph. Joseph and I became pretty great friends during PWild. One night we’re all going out to a party, and Joseph had been hooking up with a fellow named Ralph. We were on the way to the party, and I started doing the Wildcat Welcome dance, like spoons not forks, the whole jive. He definitely was very interested in watching me do the Wildcat Welcome dance. Of course he did the dance with me, and there was this building sexual tension around it.

Ralph starts making out with Joseph and immediately apologizes for it, which was weird because I was not even looking at this guy in a sexual context. I’d only kissed one guy in my whole entire life. So he’s apologizing to me, and I’m like what the fuck, maybe I’m interested.

Eventually I just looked at everyone and said, “Can someone take me to the restroom?” As expected, Ralph was like, “Over here, I’ll take you.” We were at Lambda and tried to find a bathroom upstairs. We couldn’t find one. We were kind of pinned against each other in this very dark stairwell, and I asked him what he wanted, and he told me he didn’t necessarily want Joseph. And I said, “Well, what do you want right now?” We violently made out in the stairwell. I ended up on the floor. I decided it would probably look suspicious to Joseph, so I left and told him to stay in the stairwell. The night went on, and Ralph told me before I walked away that he wanted to see me again.

The next night, we all went out for Wildcat Welcome, and I found out that Joseph had found out about me and Ralph. It manifested in this horrible bickering fight of screaming and yelling, and everyone was crying. Then Ralph and Joseph went back downstairs to the party and just started making out and crying and arguing and making out. I was very upset so I went home. So that was the one that got away. More specifically, that is the asshole that got away.”

I’m too old for this shit

Resident dad Andy Brown relives the freshman year he never had

STORY ANDY BROWN DESIGN AMANDA GORDON

ILLUSTRATION EMMA SARAPPO

I never got to be a freshman. In my first year at Northwestern, I spent most weekends holed up in my room, catching up on readings and other work. When my floormates stumbled in from another night of debauchery, I’d smirk and think to myself: “They’re gonna be drowning in work tomorrow.” Yeah, so, freshman me was kind of a dick. Whatever. Anyway, I eventually started doing my fair share of drinking and partying during sophomore year, but I’d missed the boat. So, when NBN asked me to write a story about ‘doing a decidedly freshman thing,’ with just months left until I graduate, I couldn’t pass it up. And I knew there was no better way to rekindle the sparks of my youth than to unironically attend a Wildcat Welcome party.

When you enter, the first thing that hits you is the smell. Then it’s the heat. After bypassing the “bouncers” thanks to my “friend of the frat” status, I ducked my head to enter the small, dark stairway leading to the basement where the Young Party People were standing in close quarters performing vague, offbeat gyrations to the faint beat of the “Get Turnt” playlist on Spotify.

As I descended into this sweaty cesspool, I remembered why I had not returned since my 30-minute appearance at a party. Honestly, I never regretted skipping stuff like this as a freshman.

I decided the best thing for me to do would be to pretend I was one of them. So I subtly joined a group of kids holding those universal red cups toward the end of a slightly anxious round of name/hometown/major.

“I’m from Schaumburg and I’m a bio major! Wow, crazy that so many of us are from Chicago!”

I jumped in and told them I was from Missouri (false) and in SESP (also false). I weathered a couple of subpar SESP jokes and listened to them rattle off basic stereotypes about their majors before quietly exiting the conversation.

I know you’ve got to start somewhere, but I feel like I’ve aged out of the let’s-make-fake-friends game. As I peered through the

man-made mist, a figure emerged. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt was drenched in sweat.

“Anybody down for beer pong? It’s my first time playing, and I need somebody good on my team.” Not deeming myself a worthy ringer, I said nothing. He staggered around, flustered and desperate. I could tell it was really important that he got in this game.

I yawned, found my way to the table labeled “bar” and exchanged some brief small talk with a boy who was disappointed in the “lack of selection.” Given the choice of PBR, rum and Coke, and Sprite and vodka, my new acquaintance chose to stomach a lukewarm can of option one and disappeared into the crowd.

Feeling claustrophobic, wet and frankly a little bored, I fought my way through the throng of wobbling teens to the stairwell, where I made my escape.

This basement was not my scene. Having approved the spelling of my name on my diploma just hours before the party, this was extremely clear to me. Navigating social situations like these requires a certain innocence and naïveté, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way at all. It’s just hard to suspend your cynicism when you’ve cycled through enough flimsy first-year-of-college friendships to know you probably won’t meet your future best man in a fraternity basement.

But, as my queen and savior Lorde once said, “parties are a really interesting mental exercise” when you’d otherwise be “sitting at home by [your]self hearing [your] thoughts hit the walls.” While freshman parties are not for everyone, they do serve a purpose. I’m not sure if anyone leaves them fully satisfied, but if you’ve got nothing else to do, I can understand how they’re worthwhile. It pains me to admit it, but I wish I’d given myself a chance to see what it was like three years ago.

It’s also a great chance to get wasted, if you’re into that sort of thing.