THE BRO
This guy is pretty much a huge tool, but it takes you awhile to see it. He's a bro and he tries too hard, but you weren't looking for anything serious anyway and it's kind of funny how he tries to be so cool. Eventually, though, he stops the player act around you and starts to be sweet. So, so sweet. He doesn't have enough confidence to be this way around anyone else, so you're the only person who sees it. No one believes you that this side of him exists.
Your friends will hate this guy, obviously. They will hate him so much that they will criticize everything about him, from his outfit choice to his stance on boy bands on the night he comes over to meet them. Two years later, you will still hear about how this guy was the worst and at least one of your friends will be sure to tell any other person you're interested in about the time you had a severe lapse in judgement and was with the jerk in the red, popped-collar polo.
It will end badly. I think that much is obvious. For some reason, you keep seeing each other, pretending you can be friends, but it always falls back into this giant mess: leaving a dorm at 4 a.m., crying so hard that the guard is concerned, or yelling at each other so loudly outside a party that you're asked to leave. You're pretty sure there's something still there because when you're yelling/kissing, it's passionate and exciting. But, it's also mean and awful and exhausting and at some point, you realize the person in front of you is not the person you originally met.
He's not the person who would come to your office in the middle of the night to walk you home from work. He's not the one who bought pizza and sat in his car with you for two hours, eating and talking and laughing, and he's definitely not the same person that gave you his sweatshirt and cuddled with you under the stars. That person's gone. He's never coming back.
You'll realize this much, much later than you should have. It's while he's sleeping, taking a nap after probably saying something rude and you're wondering why you ended up in his dorm room again in the first place. You'll look at the red polo hanging off the back of his chair and realize that your friends were right. You'll leave his room for the last time without bothering to wake him. Later, he'll ask you why and you'll tell him the truth: you didn't care enough to say goodbye.
THE FIRST COLLEGE CRUSH
This will be the first guy you meet at your first college party. That should basically explain itself, but I'll go on anyway.
He's cute. So cute. And funny. And sweet and fun and you guys just connect so well and then he tells you that he's "never had a friend with such a nice ass before" and it's so hilarious and perfect and you're maybe a little bit drunk for the first time ever and the two of you are talking and laughing outside a frat house when he tries to kiss you.
And, you don't want to, but you move your head to the left, so his kiss hits your cheek instead of your lips. You have a boyfriend back home; you have for awhile. He tells you it's fine, he gets it: he had a girlfriend back home last year, his freshman year. You ask about her. They aren't together anymore.
You hold hands and he walks you home, all the way to your dorm room. He makes sure you get in safely and tells you one more time how glad he is that he met you. When he kisses you goodbye on the forehead and walks away, you realize for the first time how hard the long-distance college relationship is really going to be.
Within a year, he's gone. Transferred. This isn't before the two of you become pretty good friends, though. After the night he walked you home, you hang out a lot: both with other people and by yourselves. He teaches you games, tells you stories. You always have the best times. He knows you still have a boyfriend and doesn't try to kiss you again.
By the time he leaves for a different campus, you're at the same place he was when you met: sophomore and single. You're disappointed that you're single and now he is gone, but this is life. You don't see each other again, but he'll always be your first college crush and you'll always be his friend with the nice ass.
THE OPPOSITE
You will have literally nothing in common with this person, but for some reason, you get along perfectly. The two of you can talk about anything and, while it's fun, you know that it will never work out because you have differing opinions on every single topic. He likes farms, you like cities. He enjoys math, Math 125 is the class that's making you cry. He can't understand why you voted for Obama and you can't understand why he doesn't like Oprah because you were pretty sure that EVERYONE liked Oprah and the knowledge that she has haters almost makes your mind explode.
He's sweet, though, and you like him. The two of you will spend almost every weekend together for a couple months and you always have a good time, so you're not really sure how it ends. The two of you just stopped talking as much as you normally did and you start hanging out with different people on the weekend and one day, you wake up and you're like, "Wow, I haven't talked to that person that hates Oprah in two months" and then your next thought is, "Wow, I wonder what the inside of a knee cap looks like" and all of the sudden, your day begins and life goes on and you won't think of him again.
THE GOOD FRIEND
The way you end up together will be strange. You'll be almost home on a Friday night when you're called to come to a party to rescue a friend. She's drunk. So drunk that when you get there, it's almost impossible for her to walk and, as you're trying to weigh your options, he'll come help you out.
You've known each other for awhile, but for some reason, on this particular night, there's something more. Maybe it's the way he makes you laugh, even in this terrible situation, or maybe it's just because you know that there's no way you can get this girl back to her home by yourself. Either way, he comes with you and you both stay up all night, alternating between taking care of your friend and getting to know each other better. Telling stories. Laughing. He kisses you once before he leaves and it's the most comfortable first kiss you've ever had.
It ends without really ever beginning, as these things sometimes do. You'll always be friends, that much is certain, and, six months later, as the two of you stand in the middle of a party, laughing and high-fiving about the kiss you once shared, you know you're lucky to have this solid of a friendship.
THE HIPSTER
Every date the two of you go on will be preceded by a mini anxiety attack over the fact that you don't have enough clothes from Urban Outfitters to put together an outfit that is hip enough to impress this guy. You'll have to call one of your best friends and she'll virtually have to dress you based on her memory of your closet. She does this for every single date.
Once you're actually on the date, you'll start worrying that he'll realize you aren't a real hipster (your worst fear is that he'll discover you're in a sorority). I mean, yeah, you're "Most Played" on Spotify are Animal Collective and Local Natives, but that doesn't tell about all the times you put it on "Private" and listened to Ke$ha, the Glee cast and One Direction. And yeah, the jean jacket you're wearing is totally cool, but it's storming and you'd much rather be wearing your rain jacket because, duh, it's raining.*
Eventually, you'll stop going on dates. You always have a good time, but they take way too much time and energy and you're pretty sure you guys don't have that much in common anyway. You'll find out later that he's now dating a girl with multiple tattoos and facial piercings who wears a beanie (even when it's warm outside). You will feel incredibly relieved that he finally found someone who is as hipster as him and you can go back to listening to Britney Spears in peace.
*Okay, real life question, has anyone ever seen a hipster in a rain jacket? Because I haven't and I went to Boston Calling in a goddamn thunderstorm and I'm over here with my bright green rain jacket and all these hipsters are like, just hanging out in their leather jackets and sweaters like it's NBD. Do they just not get wet? Are they impervious to rain? This is something I think about a lot, like on a day-to-day basis. Please get back to me so I can start thinking about something else, like why chins are so strange.