It was an early Friday morning when I met my date at the Starbucks in Newcomb. Russell was a student in the Batten school, and spent the hour explaining to me how his professor “simply didn’t understand” the genius behind his gambling analogy. Later that same day, while I was convincing myself that Urban Outfitters corsets were not out of style, my friend Serenity was complaining about a third-year guy. She had slept with him the night before and gone clothes thrifting with him that day.
“You wouldn’t know him, his name’s Russell,” she sighed.
I slowly turned around, “…in the Batten school?”
After confirming his last name, major, and Tinder profile, we sat in awkward silence. He had kicked her out this morning to go on a date with me. That night, Serenity had her very first Tinder heartbreak. As for me? Well, amongst the many privileges one can have in this world, I am most grateful to have the one every woman wants: dating far too many men to care.
One of these men, Dax, would invite me to a fraternity funeral for a lizard.
Serenity later informed me that she was also attending…with Russell, who I then realized was Dax’s fraternity brother. Dax would later inform me they were not just frat brothers but friends and I came to two horrible conclusions: I had accidentally “homie-hopped” and they didn’t care. Had homie-hopping, a concept that led Shakespeare to most of his great comedies, suddenly lost its impact? Or had fraternity brothers kindly taken on the motto of “sharing is caring” in a different context? The question plagued my thoughts: why do women homie-hop, and why don’t men care?
When asking my best friend Talia as to how she felt about homie-hopping, she didn’t elaborate past one word: “valid.” I consequently asked Misty, a Tinder-addicted politics major if she would homie-hop.
“…Why not?” She shrugged.
“Doesn’t it, like, hurt men’s feelings sometimes?”
“Do I look like a man? Not my problem.”
However, I was sure that homie-hopping and breaking up a friendship was easier said than done until the topic came up with a girl named Chloe. Chloe was “the kind of girl that was easy to be around” according to James Marshall, a second-year who had been in love with her since the beginning of last year. The only issue? She had hooked up with James’ best friend, Tyler, in the spring, and lied to him about it. Needless to say, James and Tyler never really talked anymore, which was all the better for Chloe. She switched between the two depending on which would give her attention at that moment. I asked her if she didn’t feel awkward about it and she replied,
“Well I like them both, they’re both funny and cute.”
“But why sleep with Tyler when James is the one that wants to date you?”
“…I like Tyler more?” It was a surprisingly simple suggestion for the complex situation she had found herself in. It seemed obvious to most of the women I had talked to that the consequences of their homie-hopping were not their problem nor their fault. I realized that they were somewhat right; while women were the supposed bewitching sirens leading men off their boats of friendship, it was certainly the men choosing to listen and jump.
So why was it that men so easily gave themselves up, or in some cases pursued, women their friends had liked? Marcus Blackwell, the most emotionally intelligent man I had ever met, when asked why, answered instantly that “men are willing to burn any bridge that doesn’t lead to sex.” Ryder Elliot, Talia’s boyfriend, disagreed saying “men are incredibly loyal, far more loyal than women.” His girlfriend, Talia, laughed in his face. She had been the long term crush and fixation of Ryder’s best friend Cruze for the three years prior to her and Ryder ever meeting.
So why do women homie-hop and men allow it? The jury filed into the room with a heartless verdict: sex felt better to men than loyalty did. For the first time in the history of mankind, it appeared that men and women could come together for a united cause: screwing over a guy’s best friend. Men, while somewhat ashamed, were more than happy to do it and women, not ashamed at all, were happy to make them. Satisfied with my conclusion, I sat down with Serenity for Monday breakfast. She updated me on her and Russell, explaining that while they had hung out a little bit, things were slowly dying between them. She finished by insisting she was done doing physical things with him.
“Oh and so that hickey on your neck came from where?”
She stifled a laugh, “…another one of his frat brothers.”
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
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