Isla Vista is a shithole. It smells, it’s dirty and if you leave anything unlocked for even a fleeting moment, it disappears. However, this is also a home in which beer flows freely, your neighbors know your name and some of the hottest co-eds in America come to study, party and screw everything that moves while it’s still socially acceptable. It’s no wonder that when our friends and random out-of-towners come to visit, our reputation precedes us and they expect to party hard and get laid. Sleeping with a visitor, whether it be a random from the street or a friend of a friend, can be an exciting, live-in-the-moment weekend memory and it is definitely one worth exploring.

The one element that is secure when hooking up with an out-of-towner is the “one night only” factor – something everyone going into such a situation should be well aware of. I am personally excited by the one night only factor. This spontaneous sex sparks in me a desire to seek thrills for the remainder of the weekend. I could spend an entire Saturday eating a breakfast burrito from The Cantina and watching “The Office” on DVD with my roommates, but having an out-of-towner around motivates me to want to do something exciting. This includes messing around at the beach, drinking on the roof or starting at Mesa Cafe & Bar and spending the entire weekend wasted. For people with expectations of more than just sex, I caution you to stay away from hooking up with visitors. You will regret it after your phone calls and Facebook pokes go unanswered.

Also, with out-of-towners, your sexual relationship has an inevitable timer that will ding and then end things, regardless of how fun your experience was. I call this an in-the-moment, instantly gratifying conclusion with no false pretenses or expectations. My ex-boyfriends call this “commitment-phobia.” Either way, you have a situation where you can have as much crazy sex as you want without strings attached or any awkward expectations of phone calls or random sober run-ins on campus. Plus, the mysterious “we’ll never see each other again” mentality allows you to have the courage to try and say things you wouldn’t normally do. I’m not referring to eccentric Kamasutra animal positions – although the toad seems quite intriguing – but having the confidence to open up to someone that you may otherwise shy away from.

This courage can be used to spice up places for sex as well, such as sneaking away to do it at a lingerie party or getting hot and heavy in various bushes around the UCen. The less likely it is that you will run into someone, the less inhibited you will be. You can let go of the worries about what people may think about you and your sex life and simply have fun. In the case of a bad hookup, you can bone out and never worry about having to see or talk to the person again.

However, in the unfortunate event that an unsatisfying hookup materializes from a friend of your roommate, the person may become harder to ditch. It is bad enough to go at it with someone, have it go terribly and then awkwardly leave their house or kick them out of yours. It is infinitely worse when you are physically unable to remove said terrible hookup from your presence because they are your roommate’s best friend from home. The day after, you have to deal with them in your room, bathroom, living room and basically every crevice of your house that you normally go to hide from a botched sex session. In this case, avoid eye contact and spend the day at your friend’s house. It is better to just run away from this one. Equally bad is when you feel some sort of connection to a visitor and sleep with him, only to have him sneak out in the middle of the night, ignore your phone calls the next day and run back to San Diego, making you feel like some sort of cheap call girl.

Regardless of the occasional bad hookup, the next time you see an out-of-town hottie wandering the streets of Isla Vista, offer to play tour guide and ask for a passport. You might just convince them to go south of the border.