The Ladies' Guide to Catching and Keeping Your Booty Call

Sometimes, when you find yourself the more interested party in an ongoing casual sex thing, especially if you're relatively inexperienced and self-conscious, it's totally normal to feel... ogre-ish. Like a frat boy. A frat boy in a designer skirt. And if you've only recently become "friends with benefits" with some dude, you're still not sure how aggressive is too aggressive (and a turn-off). Which leads to all kinds of shenanigans. For example, the following text message exchange:

LADY: "What are you doing?"
GUY: "Ugh totally overloaded with work. I wish I could sleep, I just have so much stuff I have to finish."
LADY: "Oh. I was hoping we could have pants-off time."
(5-minute silence during which lady imagines how douchey that might sound if genders were reversed.)
LADY: "Ew, no, I'm sorry for saying that, Is that tacky?
LADY: "OMG I'm a pig."
LADY: "It's just a stress reliever for me, you know?"
LADY: "You should stop being so good at it, then. Get braces or something."
LADY: "forget this whole one-sided exchange ever happened XOXO"
GUY: "does Thursday work for you?"
LADY: "I have to check my calendar."
LADY: "yes."

Luckily for you guys, I've learned some tips the hard way about how to pull off instigating a hookup. And how not to attempt to pull it off. All, of course, conditional on whether you actually have feelings for the dude, and are willing to play mind games to win him over emotionally, but let's assume you don't/aren't.

Pick someone on the periphery of your social life. Preferably not your friend's sibling, but definitely someone you can run into at parties and make out with in stairwells. There's slightly more at stake socially than there is with a stranger, but not so much as there is with someone you'd actually define as a friend.

And also, not someone who makes you nervous! No butterflies should live in your stomach or anywhere around him, really. At least in my experience, that means that I'm somewhat emotionally and physically invested is the guy, and nothing spells the end of a booty-call relationship quite like feelings. Anyway, being relaxed leads to unforced sexytime fun, and fun leads to orgasms, and orgasms are yayyyy.

Tryyyy not to kiss and tell. Just 'cause. If you're both open to other people, and you've got a lot of friends in common, that kind of blows up his spot.

Keep the drunk-texting to a minimum unless it has an actual purpose. Occasionally, it's fine and fun, but bear in mind that unless you're making plans to hang out and/or do it, it's sort of pointless, no?

Don't do the high-heel-and-skirt stuff with him. Oh, gosh, the best part of this is that you can roll up in a pair of Converse and jeans and eschew all that other stuff. Plus, then the mutual casual thing is visually established. Nothing worse than arriving at his place all dolled up and finding him in a pizza-stained t-shirt with greasy hair.

Eat in bed! Watch sh*tty movies! OK, actually this is the best part. Don't take it seriously! No soft gazes or meals in restaurants or talking about what colleges y'all went to!

And the sleeping-over thing... To be honest, I don't recommend it, but it's nice if he offers to let you stay or vice-versa, especially if it's super-late and your houses are really far apart. If a guy's kicking you out right after you're done, not the classiest move.