As a freshman at the College, it may initially seem like a good idea to hook up with or date someone on your floor. The person is always around, and it just seems like the most convenient option. However, many freshmen learn too late that there are many drawbacks to committing what is commonly referred to as “floorcest.”

Be careful about hooking up on your floor. It could lead to bad tensions between yourself and other residents. (Diana Bubser / Opinions Editor)

After Welcome Week, you quickly become very close with the people on your floor, because you are spending every waking moment with them. Whether you share your secrets with them or not, your floormates will come to find out all of your business. By telling just one friend who you hooked up with on the floor, the rest of your floor will eventually know, destroying any likelihood of keeping a hook-up low-key.

Once the semester is in full swing, chances are you won’t keep hooking up with the same person you found interest in during Welcome Week or the beginning of the semester. A “floorcest” chain will ensue, and soon you will be able to make a web of who has hooked up with who on your floor. Not only does this seem distasteful, it is also very unhealthy.

Your floormates aren’t usually people you’ve known your whole life, so it’s likely you don’t know their sexual histories, especially if the event occurs after a night of drinking. Are you really going to ask the hot person on your floor how many people they’ve hooked up with right before you’re about to kiss them?

It is awkward enough to run into someone you drunkenly hooked up with at a frat party, or in the elevator on your way to class, but this awkwardness is intensified when you are stuck with the person for much longer than an elevator ride. You’ll run into the people you commit floorcest with on the way to your room, a friend’s room, to the shower, to do laundry … the list goes on and on.  Instead of having a surging embarrassment once for a two minute elevator ride, you could turn beet red on a daily basis when you see your floorcest partner. The chances are much higher that you will run into them.

It’s also likely that you will share many friends with hook up partners on your floor, so if it is a continuous hook-up, it’s possible matters could become awkward for your friends. Sometimes, “floorcest” hook ups do turn into relationships, and when the relationship goes sour, friends are often forced to choose sides. This isn’t to say that it’s impossible for the relationship to work out — everyone seems to have a story of a couple from their freshman floor that is still together.

Floorcest at the very least is an act you should engage in with a cautionary mindset. You will be spending a lot of time with your floormates over the next year and you will learn about their imperfections and quirks much faster than you would an individual you weren’t living with.

Relationships cycle much faster than they would if you weren’t living with your significant other. Your honeymoon period doesn’t last as long when you’re constantly exposed to your person of interest, but this also means that you get to know other people on a more intimate level. So, just like getting into a pool, it is best to test the waters before you jump in.

Next week, Lauren will discuss how to handle a long distance relationship in college.  If you have an idea for a column, e-mail gurry2@tcnj.edu to share.