“Sexy Bill Clinton!” he says, grinning, like he’s certain he got it. “The cigar is a total —”
“No,” I shout.
I knew I should have gotten a beard, because no one has any idea who I am, but I really didn’t want to wear a beard. It seems like a huge pain in the ass.
“Well, whatever you are, you’re totally sexy,” he shouts. “It’s a good costume.”
“Thank you,” I shout back.
I’m supposed to be making out with Josh. Well, not with Josh specifically, but the idea of tonight was that I would make out with someone and it would scratch my itch and I would stop thinking about Caleb and thus be freed to find a more suitable match.
It’s not working. This is the same story as always: some guy talks to me. I get intensely uncomfortable. He flirts. I try to imagine making out with him, and it weirds me out so much that I make some excuse and leave.
I don’t know what my problem is. It seems like everyone else I know has no problem doing this kind of thing, why do I?
“Guess what I am,” he shouts.
I take another step back and regard his outfit: basketball shorts, flip flops, and a tank top. It’s not really seasonally appropriate, but other than that, he looks like one of the several thousand guys on campus who wear that every day.
“An off-duty lifeguard,” I guess.
Josh looks mildly puzzled and drinks some more.
“Nah, man,” he says.
“A surfer on the weekend,” I try again, and now he laughs.
“I’m a Rho Gamma Delta!” he shouts, holding his drink way up, like it’s a torch. “Haha! Get it! They’re always wearing shorts and flip flops and shit, it’s like they don’t even own real shoes.”
“That’s really good,” I lie. “Super funny.”
I try smiling at him. Is this how you flirt? You tell a guy he’s funny and smile at him?
“Thanks,” he says. “Me and a couple of my buddies are gonna go over there in a little while, they’re having their own party and man, are they gonna be…”
He keeps talking, but I stop listening to stare at his mouth as his lips move.
Can I make out with him? I just have to put my face right there and then get my lips against his…
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with Josh. He’s nice looking. Good face. Athletic body. My own age. Not my professor.
And yet, the idea of putting my face on his and making out makes me feel like there are worms crawling over my skin.
I don’t want to. Even though, in the abstract, I really do want to accomplish my stated goals for tonight, I just don’t want to make out with this guy.
“That’ll be great,” I say when he’s finished with his plans for pranking another frat, or… something. “Super funny. Hey, I gotta go get a refill, cool talking to you!”
I don’t even wait for a response before I flee.
Like all the frats on campus, Kappa Chi Kappa is in an old house, and I duck around a staircase decorated with fake cobwebs and giant (fake) spiders, then through a hallway hung with skeletons and then past the party room, music pumping out.
I scan it quickly, but I don’t see anyone I know in the writhing mass of bodies, so I skip it.
The kitchen. Another hallway. A room that’s just filled with Christmas lights and people making out on beanbag chairs.
Then, finally, in a room that I think is some kind of closed-in porch, I find Harper and Victoria.
“Heyyyyy!” they chorus when they see me.
“Heyyy,” I say, flopping on the couch next to them.
I choose not to think about the things a frat house couch has probably seen.
“How’s the mission going?” Victoria asks.
“The mission is stupid,” I say.
“So, bad?” Harper asks, taking a sip of her beer. I think they’re both slightly drunker than me, but it’s Halloween. Everyone should be drunk. That’s the point of Halloween in college.
“I tried,” I say, leaning my head against the back of the couch. My extremely-short-cutoff-shorts are giving me an intense wedgie right now, but I don’t care quite enough to fix it. “I just… don’t wanna.”
“Then don’t,” Victoria says. “If you make out with someone just to make out with someone, you’ll only wind up feeling bad about that.”
“It’s okay to only make out with people you actually want to make out with,” Harper joins in.
“I know,” I say. “I just wish I wanted to make out with more people.”
“Do you?” Victoria asks.
“More beer would fix that,” Harper offers.
“I don’t want more beer either,” I say.
“Then I don’t know how to help you,” she says, finishing her own off.
“Where’s Margaret?” I ask, even though I probably know the answer.
“One of her harem boys is in this frat,” Victoria says. “They’re probably upstairs.”
Margaret is — in her own words — a slut, which she defines as “a woman who likes sex and isn’t shy about it.” At any given time, she has several friends-with-benefits relationships going on, all of which seem pleasurable and safe and consensual and am I jealous?