10 People Who Show Up To Every Off-Campus College House Party

1. Drifters
Alright so far your house party is looking pretty sweet. Then all the sudden you spot a middle-aged dude in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt, hanging out by the keg and you think, What the fuck? I didn’t invite that dude! Alright, chill. That’s a drifter. Who he is and how he got to your party doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you realize whence throwing a house party, you’re going to attract a few of these every once in a while. These folks are tumbleweeds, and they’ll go where the wind takes them. It just so happen that tonight the wind took them to your off-campus party. Tomorrow the wind might take them to a meth lab in the desert, or Moscow or whatever. There’s no point in kicking the drifters out and causing a scene. Embrace them. They give your party a much-needed edge. But be warned: Best keep the drifter ratio low or else your party will start feeling like Burning Man and then all the hot chicks are going to leave and hit up the frat house down the block.

2. Student Athletes
The student athlete presents the lay house-party host with a challenge. On one hand, a few football players in your house gives your party much needed credibility i.e. the chicks see the football players and think, “OMG this party is so legit!” On the other hand, any chance you had at scoring with one of these chicks falls into a dark pit when said chicks start to picture themselves hooking up with, and eventually marrying, a dude with an NFL contract. Ultimately, though, the pros outweigh the cons on this one. Just be a cordial host and treat your student athletes with respect. Not too much respect though, because you don’t want to come off looking like a brown-noser.

3. Guy Who Thinks He’s Tupac Reincarnate
Every party has the one dude who drinks like half of a 40 and then all the sudden needs to show everybody how he spits hot fire and hails from mean streets of Connecticut. As soon as you hear this guy yelling out to absolutely no one, “Hey yo, give me a word!” tap him on the shoulder and explain to him that this isn’t 8 Mile and he should finish up his 40 because it’s been three quarters full for like an hour now.

4. Guy Who Thinks He’s Aviicci
At some point “Ignition (Remix)” by R. Kelly will start playing, and you’re going to have to start making moves on whoever you’ve been lusting after this whole night, and then—uh oh, some big dude in a hoodie is unplugging your iPod so he can jam his 30 minute long mashup he mixed all by himself on his fucking Toshiba and by the way would you ever want him to like DJ one of your parties? Fuck this guy. You took the time out of your afternoon to make the perfect playlist for your freaking party and he has the audacity to unplug you so he can get a turn! Would you let him unplug your dick so he can get a turn working your girl with his shriveled wang? Tell this dude to go to hell and lay off your fucking sound system.

5. Thieves
Thieves love parties so if you throw one, they will come (alright that came out cornier then I had intended.) But seriously, during the week the thieves sit around in their thief-caves and scheme and plot so that on the weekend they can show up at some unsuspecting dude’s house party and leave with a new snap-back, or a new iPhone, or an Anchorman DVD, or a box of fucking chocolate pudding. So be prudent. Also know that the thieves are adept at disguising themselves. The dude you recognize from accounting? Looks like a normal dude. Could be a thief. Hot chick you just made out with? She’s been eyeing your aviators the whole night. Word of advice for the would-be party thrower: Lock your shit up, don’t let random people into your bedroom, and suspect everyone.

6. Freshmen
Your chances of having freshmen at your party increase dramatically the closer your house is to campus because freshmen are a timid beast and don’t like to venture out too far from their dens. If you have a house right off campus, having freshmen at your party is unavoidable. And while yeah, in a perfect world there’d be a device that’d let you sieve out the freshman dudes thus leaving you only freshmen chicks, in a perfect world you’d also be nailing the chick from Hunger Games and own the New York Giants. So you’ll have freshmen dudes at your party and you’ll have freshmen chicks at your party, and that’s the imperfect world we live in. Just make sure you don’t have too many. Also, keep your eye on ‘em, lest one of them turns out to be a well-disguised thief (See #5.)

7. PDA Guy
The music’s bumping, yeah, but the lights are still on, and people are mingling around all polite like you’ve thrown them all a cocktail party. Enter PDA Guy. He’s lived his entire life for this one sweaty moment. PDA Guy is the dude who turns the lights off in the living room while shouting some generic frat-boy colloquialism like “Let’s get this party started” as if he alone holds the master clock to which your party adheres to. As if he alone decides when your party “get’s started.” Don’t be fooled by PDA Guy’s mock benevolence. He doesn’t want to get your party started (and know, if PDA Guy has made it to your party, rest assured your party started hours ago.) No, all PDA Guy wants to do is turn the lights off so he can stick his tongue down some chick’s throat in front of the whole party in hopes that people will turn around and think thoughts like, “Man, this guy must be like the Matt Damon of our university.” Clearly no one is going to see PDA Guy and think he is the Matt Damon of your university. And, in all honesty, he does give your party a bit of a morale boost. I say, live and let live.

8. Guy Who Realizes This Is Your House and Now Wants to be Your Best Friend
This could be a particularly ballsy freshmen, for example. Or maybe there’s some overlap and this is PDA Guy or Wakka Flakka Greenwich. Whoever it is, know that there’s always going the one dude who realizes this is your place and now he’s all up in your grill, calling you “dawg,” and complimenting random shit like, “Dawg, your kitchen’s paint job is sick!” as if you had anything to do with the shade of off-white your landlord used on the kitchen. Best to think of this guy as a visiting peasant paying his respect to a local noble who runs a particularly bumping castle (aka you.) Now in the olden days peasants and nobles were never friends. So boom, friendship is automatically ruled off forever the table by the tides of history. But there was a clear give and take that existed back then. Namely, you kiss-my-ass and in turn I won’t kick your ass off my estate.

9. Creepers
O.K., assess your party thus far: Music’s bumping (due in no small measure to your ability to keep DJ Dickhead away from your speakers), beer pong is being played to fine effect, PDA Guy has his tongue wedged down some sophomore’s throat. It’d be fair to call your off-campus party a success until—wait, who’s that lurking over the gaggle of cute freshmen chicks like a wolf to fawns? That, gentleman—with his greased back hair, and tucked in polo, and absolutely no sense of what’s appropriate at a college house party—is a creeper, and somehow said creeper made his way into your home. Now, you did throw this party, and in doing so you surrendered your home to the public domain. As such, you can’t go kicking a dude out just because he’s creeping out all the chicks. But at the same time, he is creeping out all the chicks and once the chicks leave, your party becomes post-Lebron Cleveland (aka a sad lonely place that no one gives two-shits about.) So here’s what you do: lead the creeper to the kitchen, get him a beer, introduce him to a drifter if one is present (See #1), and keep him as far away from the chicks as possible. If one of your roommates is the type of roommate who during parties transforms his bedroom into a smoke-filled crack den where like-minded Philosophy majors argue over politics or the economy or the Illuminati or whatever-the-fuck, lead the creeper into that room. Chances are he’ll feel right at home.

10. Cops
Look, if your party is half-decent, the cops will show up. That’s science. The trick is: what do you do when they do show up? Also, keep in mind, the cops are the cops and they are legally allowed to fuck you up if they feel like it. So here’s what you do: First, remember you’re drunk so all the clever ideas you’re thinking of right now are actually stupid ones. Second, say this: “Officers, boy are we glad you showed up! My roommates and I had planned on having a little get together to unwind after a long week of studying, and then all these random people started showing up! In fact, we were just about to call you guys!” They’ll be surprised as fuck that you’re speaking coherently and will most likely cut you a break.