Floorcest: Is it Worth It?
By Laura Cohen
At first thought, hooking up with someone on your floor may seem like a great idea. Forget walking through the freezing Syracuse winters when all you need to do to hang out with your significant other is walk down the hall. And even better, no more walks of shame. No one will see you creep down the hallway in the morning, except maybe the custodians.
Your significant other will most likely be there when you are bored, procrastinating homework, or stumbling in at 3 a.m. It’s just so convenient. However, too many of us figure out after the fact that there are considerable downsides to committing “floorcest.”
If you choose to date someone on your floor, you’ve basically moved in with your lover at 18. Translation: No space. With so much time spent together, that honeymoon period at the beginning of a relationship will inevitably be shorter. Sure, you will get to know him or her much better than you would have known a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school, but with constant exposure, you will learn all of their flaws rather quickly.
Don’t expect to keep your floorcest on the down low, though. Word will spread like wildfire and pretty soon the whole floor will know what you did. It is not likely that you will continue hooking up with the same person all semester, and soon you will be able to construct a tangled web of who has hooked up with whom on the floor. Gross.
It’s awkward enough seeing someone you drunkenly hooked up with at a party on the quad, but imagine seeing the person you drunkenly had a one-night rendezvous with practically every waking moment. You see your floor mates everywhere: walking to the shower, a friend’s room, the dining hall, the laundry room … Need I go on? Your floor should be a safe haven where you can socialize freely, not a confined dungeon where you stay in fear of awkwardness.
Once the floorcest fails, we have an entirely new problem to worry about. Besides awkwardly seeing your ex all the time, you will be there to witness when he or she brings back someone new to the room. Ouch. Since you most likely share the same group of friends on the floor, people may choose sides, thus decreasing the tightness of the floor.
There always seems to be a story of “the exception” where one couple from floorcest stays together throughout the entire year. But, for each exception, there are even more examples of floorcest gone wrong. Perhaps this is because the two people dating do not actually like one another, but are just in it for the convenience factor.
Be warned: most people discourage floorcest. But if you are convinced The Perfect Ten living three doors down is your match made in heaven, please proceed with much caution. And if you are “the exception,” let us know how you made that one work.