Columns

Befriend The Campus Bartender, Don’t Sleep With Him

Don't sleep with the bartender

My freshman year, my best friend started hooking up with the bouncer at one of our campus bars. For a few months, it was the dream scenario. We’d strut right to the front of the line and just walk in. Fuck the internal panic-inducing event of handing over our clearly fake IDs and praying not to get rejected. We didn’t even need to show them. We’d get free drinks all night long and after the bar closed at 2, we’d stay and continue to get shitfaced with the staff until four or five in the morning. And the best part of it all? I didn’t even have to fuck the semi-hot 30-year-old college bouncer that lived in a run-down studio apartment and had two kids with two baby mamas. Freshman year goals, AMIRITE?

But then they broke up, and not in a good way. My friend realized that she was 19 fucking a 30-year-old loser and that she could do way, way better. And also that he was cheating on her with other stupid 19-year-olds who thought they were ~mature~ for having sex with an older guy. So she did what any sane girl would do – she got shitfaced and caused a public scene. Obvi.

So I bet you’re all wondering what the fuck this has to do with you, right? Besides the fact of valuable life advice not to fuck deadbeats (seriously, don’t), it’s a cautionary tale in another way. After they broke up, we no longer got free drinks at the bar and we no longer got to skip the line, mostly because we were no longer even allowed in the bar. Because underage. We were essentially blackballed by the scummy bouncer until we both were legal and they had no reason to keep us out, which was not for awhile. Embarrassing, I know.

But here is where I offer you words of wisdom guaranteed to save a lot of headaches and a lot of money: befriend the bartender, don’t fuck him. If you’re friends with the guy in charge of the alcohol, you’ll still get to cut the line and you’ll still get free drinks, but you won’t have messy relationship drama threatening to fuck it all up and ruin a campus bar for you for years to come.

Maybe your next question is how do you become friends with them and not fuck them? It’s simple, talk to them. I’ve worked in the service industry as either a waitress or a cocktail waitress since I was 16 and to be completely honest, most customers fucking suck. That’s even more true for entitled college assholes who think they are hot shit for getting into the bar with a fake, then become impatient and rude when ordering drinks. The worst part of it all, is nine time out of ten, college kids don’t tip. White, black, brown, male, female, or anti-gender conformity, in all my years of experience, college kids don’t tip or they tip for shit. So talk to the bartender, bitch about what a brat that random girl was while he’s making your drink, and then tip him. Trust me, they’ll remember it, especially if you tip well.

Once they know you, the bartenders will start making your drinks a little stronger or shorting a dickhead buying a round of shots a little on each and giving you a shot. They’ll start to let you know if someone is getting super shitfaced and blowing up charges on their tab and offer to put some drinks for you on the tab (sidenote: yes, this really does happen so even if you’re not friends, don’t be a dick to the bartender). Eventually, they just won’t even bother charging you. All you have to do is be your normal, nice, sociable self. You can help hook them up with tangential friends and they can hook you up with more free alcohol. It is the definition of a win-win situation.

But for the love of all that is holy, don’t fuck the campus bartender. You will get pregnant and you will die. Or just ruin a bar when it all goes to shit, same thing really.

Email this to a friend

ChampagneShowers

Champagne Showers is a contributing writer for TSM. She is your typical Northern Diva. If curse words, sexual content, and drug use offend you, then bless your heart. CS will continue living the life you're too scared to live. email her at: [email protected]

For More Photos and Videos

Latest podcasts

New Stories

Load More