Avoid McNasty

Not to be too dramatic, but your entire college social career can be determined by who you hook up with in the first few weeks of your freshman year. After four years at the University of Nevada, Reno, I’ve seen it happen time and again. Those first sunny days of September bring all kinds of new things: friends, classes and interesting foot diseases contracted in the dorms. Most of all, those first days bring endless opportunities to meet new PYT’s (pretty young things) to go on dates and swap spit with. But go crazy and have a kissing friend on the fourth floor of every residence hall, and it may haunt you all the way through senior year.

No matter how much you think college will be different than high school, when it comes to dating, it’s exactly the same. Just take all the uncomfortable aspects of your high school love life and magnify them by 20 times. In high school, you make out with someone over the weekend, and then you might have to see them at lunch. In college, you hook up on a Saturday night, and then you live together—like, two doors apart. Talk about your awkward moments.

The younger girl/older guy conundrum is still at play. Remember when the biggest pimp of 8th grade suddenly lost all female attention come high school? Guys, I’m sorry to say it, but your high school game just won’t work once you hit the big time. You’re going to have to learn some new moves unless you want to wait a few years. Or join a fraternity.

Ladies, you know what I’m going to say: You are not freshmen. You are fresh meat. That buff older guy who so suavely offers to escort you to the tailgater or help you get a fake ID, well, he is one of two animals.

1. He is a Creepy McNasty, who can’t get a girl his own age. (He’s so desperate he will commit a felony just to get you into the bar and drunk.)

2. He is that formerly spurned freshman who has put in his time and is now an upperclassman and raring to go. He hasn’t been able to get near a girl since dorm move-in day. Run for the hills.

It’s not that all older guys at UNR only want one thing. It’s just that they know you will be impressed by their façade of college sophistication and ability to legally buy a beer. I suggest holding onto your skirt and choosing wisely. Or, indulge your fellow freshmen, and give an 18-year-old a chance. We can work together to break the vicious cycle.

Guys and girls alike should be picky during those first few weeks of school. Don’t attend every pizza party and Twister game your residence hall sponsors. Wait a few weeks until all the hubbub dies down. Your experience in the dorms may be like mine, when the guys next door moved out all their furniture to make way for a foosball table. At first, it was super-cool and super-awesome, but then it got super-old.

Dating will be like that as well. Make out with every single one of your new classmates, and you’ll be old news by Thanksgiving break. Wait awhile to join the game, and you can avoid being one of the couples you see buying books together three years from now, grumbling, “If only we hadn’t sat next to each other at new student orientation.”