It wasn’t the sort of thing you could plan for. In fact, it was the kind of mix-up that only happens in college, when boundaries between sober and tipsy, awake and asleep, seem more like faint suggestions than hard rules. I’d been in a fraternity, and our house was a classic setup—one long hallway, with rooms stacked side-by-side, all the way down to the bathroom at the end. I lived directly across from the fraternity president, a guy who, well, thought he was every bit the Big Man on Campus. He had the confidence to go with it, as well as a girlfriend who’d earned her own kind of reputation: the life of every party, and the girl most likely to take a joke too far.
One late night, I was dead asleep in my room, doors closed and oblivious to whatever festivities my neighbors might be up to. Meanwhile, across the hall, Mr. President and his girlfriend were well on their way to becoming a cautionary tale. She’d had a few pot brownies and a generous number of shots, while he was too far gone to notice much of anything. Between their laughter, her intoxicated logic kicked in, reminding her that she had some business to take care of—specifically, a trip to the bathroom.
Our bathrooms weren’t exactly glamorous. Just a shared space down the hall, covered in scuffed tiles, with the kind of dim lighting that could turn any reflection into a horror movie. But that night, this bathroom was the setting for a different sort of story. As she sat there, the realization hit her: she was completely, utterly naked. Not an inch of fabric on her. In her drunken haze, she pieced together that somewhere between the brownies, the shots, and her boyfriend’s indifference, she’d managed to wander out of the room without a stitch of clothing on.
But it was two in the morning, and in her mind, that meant she was safe from prying eyes. No one else would be around to witness her hasty streak from the bathroom back to his room, right? Or so she thought.
So, as soon as she was finished, she peeked out into the hallway, giving it a quick left-and-right check to ensure it was empty. And then, she bolted. Heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, she sprinted down the hall. Only one problem: her aim was a bit off. Instead of slipping back into the president’s room across the hall, she burst through my door, thinking she was back in familiar territory. I, of course, was oblivious. Fast asleep. But she, in her panic, was wide awake.
Standing there in a stranger’s room, naked as the day she was born, she realized she couldn’t just march back into the hallway without anything on. So, she did what any resourceful, slightly stoned, and very drunk college girl would do—she rummaged. Out of sheer desperation, she spotted a pair of my shorts lying on the floor. With a sigh of relief, she pulled them on. Next, she reached into my closet, grabbing the first thing within reach: my brand-new suit jacket, tags still attached. Apparently, she thought this made her look appropriately dignified, although she wasn’t quite done accessorizing. With the same quick judgment that had gotten her into my room in the first place, she decided that a baseball cap and sneakers were necessary final touches to her new “disguise.”
Satisfied with her outfit, she made her exit, casually strolling back across the hall and finally returning to her boyfriend’s room. But it wasn’t the grand entrance she was hoping for. Mr. President was less than thrilled with her makeshift wardrobe, especially when he noticed the tags dangling from my brand-new suit jacket. Let’s just say they didn’t exchange pleasantries. Voices escalated. Slurred accusations and indignant replies echoed down the hall, and by now, the whole house was awake.
My room, meanwhile, was Ground Zero for questions. I woke up to a pounding on my door and a slew of puzzled looks as I stood there in my pajamas, rubbing sleep from my eyes. The fraternity brothers looked at me like I was the mastermind behind some bizarre heist. “Care to explain why the president’s girlfriend is wearing your clothes?” one of them asked, suppressing a smirk.
I could only offer a groggy shrug as she sheepishly emerged from across the hall, still in my shorts, jacket, and sneakers, her boyfriend fuming beside her. To this day, I’m not sure if it was the embarrassment, the alcohol, or the fact that this had all transpired in the middle of the night, but nobody really pressed me for details beyond that. The president and I never really spoke after that night. We kept a respectful distance, like two survivors of a battle who’d reached a silent truce. Meanwhile, she and I actually hit it off. The memory became an inside joke between us, and we ended up as good friends, bonded by a shared, unspoken understanding that college can make fools of us all.
Somehow, the whole ridiculous ordeal ended up being one of my favorite memories from that time, a reminder that life can be unpredictable—and that sometimes, the best friendships begin with the strangest first impressions.
