Hamilton’s a small world. You’ll see the same folks in your classes and around campus year in, year out. And you’ll come to see the same familiar faces on the House d-floor or smashing back shots of Mother Russia at your local Beaumont hotspot every Saturday. So with small-city energy and an entire university cohort that basically fits within a five minutes’ radius, you’ll inevitably have to navigate minefields like growing mad crushes on your friends and/or attempting to avoid sleeping with anybody who might have licked your mate’s privates. 

There are two key categories of situations to consider here. The first is where you’re friends, yes, but it’s clear from the get-go that there’s potential for more – whether the crush is mutual or not. The other is where you’re genuinely just good mates and realise one day that, fuck, you’re in love. Well, I don’t know about you, but our extended friend group is what could only be described as incestuous. There’s a thing or two we’ve learned in the process.

Falling for a friend is tricky. If you’re on the same page, it can be epic. You rarely have to choose between time with the S.O and your mates, since you’re literally at all the same events, and friends with all the same people. But if you’re not on the same page, it could potentially get weird. Or just, y’know, depressing. 

On certain particularly intoxicated occasions, we may accidentally slip into hooking up with 110% platonic mates. Sometimes you can gloss over it like it didn’t even happen, and the friendship is sound. Sometimes it ends weirdly and you’ll never be able to work on a group project in class together ever again, which is actually super inconvenient. Other times, you’ve got yourself a stage VI clinger that you can’t seem to avoid anywhere because it’s Hamilton, and things get awkward. You’ve got to decide if it’s worth it.

Other times, the attraction goes deeper. I can pinpoint the exact drunken conversation where I developed a crush on a mate of mine. Who was, naturally, grafting someone else. So I, needless to say, did what anybody else would do – distracted myself with another bloke and pined over it for a while. In the end, I realised that my mate was probably better suited to me as just that: a mate. The friendship meant more to me than what the potential of a brief tryst (and then probably just a series of awkward encounters) ever would. Lust is fleeting but friendly banter is eternal, as the philosophers say. Some fantasies should be better left as fantasies. In saying that, if you really like this bloke/blokette and you’re willing to take your chances, go for it. Sack up or miss out. 

If there’s anything that university has taught me, it’s that you need to be strategic about who you get with from a good-looking friend group. Also that you should never, ever funnel red wine, but that’s a different story. Much like how a reputation for giving good head gets around via word of mouth (pun intended), so too does word that you’ve fucked every member within a flat. Let’s talk about a few house rules; an amalgamation of your classic bro code/girl code. Or, shall I say, strongly recommended guidelines. 

  1. Don’t get with somebody if it would hurt your mate. Like, your mate’s girlfriend is off-limits. Period. 
  2. You can only claim the hands-off rule to an absolute maximum of 3-5 people at any one time. If your ex, your fuckbuddy, and your current crush are off-limits, you’re going to need to relinquish your claim on your crush in Halls, your second cousin, and the twenty second-years you’ve gotten with in town otherwise your mates will have no one left to get with in the whole of bloody Hamilton. 
  3. Building on that, if your mate got with someone but there were no feelings, they’re fair game. 
  4. If your mate was rejected by someone but you’re keen on them, with permission, they’re also fair game.
  5. You can fuck a max of two people from a small friend group. The number scales with the size of the friend group.
  6. When dating someone, you must not constantly dog your mates. 
  7. You must never cock-block. 
  8. The exception to #7 is where you are morally obligated to rescue a mate who is strongly under the influence from going home with a person if the aforementioned friend is strongly under the influence and you KNOW without a single doubt that said hook-up will lead to intense regret come the morning after.
  9. A wingman must be loyal, speak nothing but praise, and do everything in their power to broker the deal for their mate.
  10. If your friend has voiced intention to score a certain target that night, interference isn’t allowed, and you must NOT graft said person. 

Disobey the bro code at your own peril. Moral of the story: if you feel like pile-driving your mates’ ex-flings or just your mates themselves, take an extra minute to mull it over. 

Good luck out there soldiers.

Xx