The September issue of the Blue and White will be hitting a rack near you during move in. In the meantime, here’s a NSOP-inspired sneak peek from the issue: a Blue Note on that scourge of freshman relationships, floorcest.

“It was the worst mistake of my life,” said “Jake,” CC’12. Jake wishes to be identified by an alias, for obvious reasons: he is a victim of the messy collegiate phenomenon known as floorcest. Unfamiliar with the term? Imagine encountering two of your dorm neighbors “hanging off of each other’s faces outside the elevator,” a memory “Beanpole,” CC’12, still can’t shake.

But floorcest has many flavors—sometimes it’s even sweet. “Martha,” CC’09 and a former RA, told a tale of awkward boy meets awkward girl. After the two began to study together, their floormates watched, with silent encouragement, the pair’s slow mating waddle. One day, they realized the two had shifted their studying from the common areas to their bedrooms. “We all agreed it was just adorable,” said Martha.

More often, floorcest has a rank taste, like old cheese in mildewed Tupperware. Trips to the elevator filled Ben Braddock, CC’09, with “a sort of sick anticipation,” he said, whenever he and his girlfriend were on the outs. The break-up of a floorcestuous relation ship can prove unusually bitter. Cohabiting groups of friends align themselves behind one maligned ex or the other. “When it ended,” said Jake, “it created a complete schism in the [floor] group, and there were entangling alliances.”

Lower-grade trysts usually dissolve with less drama. on Beanpole’s floor, neighborly hook-ups were common stuff. “I think those little romances didn’t last because there was nothing there except alcohol,” he said. “They just [broke] apart without much comment.”

But even relationships that last through May can get rough. For a couple used to a five-yard commute, a summer apart can trigger withdrawal spasms. “The closeness definitely became a crutch, because even when it was painful to be around each other,…we had a really good reason to work things out,” explained Beanpole. “You just can’t handle things the same way over the phone.”

Still, for all the drawbacks of floorcest, it’s likely to snare us all at some point. “It was probably a lot easier back when Columbia was single-sex, and the girls had to retreat to the other side of the street,” mused Braddock, “But where is the fun in that?”

– Mark Hay