A guide to getting with your mates

The funny way fate can fall. That one girl or guy who sparked your arousals the first time you met them has managed to become a mainstay in your most trusted friendship group, before you ever got the chance to press ahead with your own primeval ambitions and do the dirty. It’s all over, your friend-zoned, there’s no chance – not even for you to get with them at the back of Revs at 3am.

You’re wrong. There’s always hope for those willing to play the game right, and put themselves back in their drunken-mistake-frame, and hurdle the sky-high barriers of the friend-zone. You just have to be up for the graft of your life.

Because, let’s face it. You’re friends with a cracking lad or lass, and you really fancy them. You didn’t ask to be friends, really. So now you are, let’s get one thing straight: your friendship doesn’t matter. If you ever get the chance to proposition yourself against this gorgeous and funny person, no doubt they are, do not hesitate under the grounds that “their friendship is too important to you”.

Firstly, you’re not actually guaranteed to fuck that up, so man up and get on with it. Secondly, getting too attached to friendships is for pussies and most uni friendships last a semester, tops. Guess what will happen we you graduate, or you both go home at the end of term? You won’t talk to them. Probably.

Two of these mates have got with each other, and you wouldn’t guess it, because the system works.

Now, positioning yourself is the foremost thing to get right, as you can’t come across as desperate. Barrelling in, rough and ready, can suit certain people… but let’s assume for a second that your mate is too smart for that – they know you too well, after all.

With this in mind, your ideal drunken snog is far more likely to happen when it’s just the two of you. This is obvious, for anyone who’s got with people in clubs, but is triply vital when it’s a mate – they won’t kiss you in front of your other mates, will they? So separate him or her from the pack, as the saying goes. Now here, being mates, being alone with eachother, it’s hardly suspicious.

Now this is the thing, you can’t be predictable. Getting with your mate should go down as the slyest thing your group has ever seen. If they cotton onto your motives beforehand, they’ll shout you down and any subtlety will be out the window, your plan in bits on the floor (like your heart, lol). If you work it right, it should be the last thing people expect.

They may look innocent, but some girls are as sly as the best of them…

And that sets us up for the final part, and where being friends can be to your advantage. You’re alone in your boozy establishment of choice, no one is any the wiser, and then you can pull something out of the bag to make them momentarily fall in love with you. Be it a cheesy line, song, or dance move that you know they’ll love, and you can woo them for a five-minute re-enactment of the scene from Clueless.

Happy days. The morning after? Just brush it off as a typical drunken moment, if need be. If this opens up a long and fruitful relationship/benefits scheme then marvellous, and you can send my cheque in the post.