The Morning After

A handy disguise...

Obviously hauling the concrete slab one hundred and eighty degrees to your right to find your precious recovery zone occupied by an only marginally familiar face isn't the best start to the morning (I say morning, perhaps I mean 1pm). What the bejesus were you thinking?! (Made a hundred times worse if said third party is less than attractive, but that’s another story). Right now you just want to get along with sobering up, and having to worry about dealing with “this” and its future repercussions is not so great.

Anyway, the life of the student is all about new experiences. 'Going wild' and all that. Especially in the fabled Freshers’ Week! Right...? Well, the scenario previously described is not one that we would necessarily endorse, but it happens, and you know... well whatever.

So to get to the crux of the matter, the most important word featured in the preceding three paragraphs is REPERCUSSIONS. As all us goldfish in the proverbial University of York fishbowl will eventually become aware, campus is a wee small environment. How many of us can't say that there's been a day where we've accidentally bumped into the same person three times?

Last time I checked York was the sixth smallest university in the UK (don't quote me on this) and so undercover encounters are made less easy to brush under the surface, not least when your newfound friend is a little more eager to swap numbers and text you about going out for a drink sometime than you are.

And no, going undercover wearing your “I'm incognito” hoody with the hood up, sunnies, a trucker cap, and walking everywhere slightly faster than usual is not a feasible solution.

So how to deal with the hanger-on?

• Ignore Marginally callous, yes, but nevertheless effective. Only a particularly tenacious someone would continue to get textual on a daily basis without any form of response. Maybe if the worst case scenario arises and you bump into him/her on campus in a situation where blanking them by taking a sudden vested in a flock of pigeons is not an option, just say you lost their number or something. You may be back to square one, but at least you've held face. Sweet.

• Fob off As always, tact is the key. An example of sincere lack of tact is, on getting dressed the following morning, “so, that meant nothing, yeah?”. Just don't go there. Yes this may nip things in the bud but as far as kudos points go you lose them all, and go straight to jail without passing go and without collecting £200. It's all about the “maybe next week sometime”. Repeat ad libitum until they get the picture.

• Refer on “Have you met my friend Morag?”

• Faux honesty Play it by ear, and if they start getting eager, then you “have a really busy term”, “are still getting over someone” or “can't because I just had my tarot cards read and if I date someone with mousy-brown hair then I'll die an early death and never receive the fruits of my labour”. Yeah, they could be for real.

• Give it a try So what have I got to lose? My term is only fairly busy and maybe I fancy being taken to Wetherspoons for a glass of house white on a Monday evening? I mean they're at university so they must have a bit of nouse and that's one box ticked... perhaps we'll bond over a closet addiction to 'Location Location Location'?

So to round off, the moral of the story is: is a drunken night's worth of fun and banter and you-know-what worth a potentially drawn-out and harmful period afterwards? I want to say yes for the crack, but I'll leave it up to you.

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