Editor's Note: Chris Illuminati is the author of the new book A**holeology: The Cheat Sheet. He is a regular contributor to Penthouse magazine and used to play beer pong to relax before exams. He would lose on purpose.
The person you are in college is going to be very different from the person you become after graduation. It’s not just because you’re expected to grow up, but because this whole new set of rules is thrust upon you as a “young adult.” Some of the shit you pulled in school isn’t going to work in the real world. That stuff could get you in trouble with the law, fired, evicted, or even killed.
In my new book, A**holeology: The Cheat Sheet, I explain how to be an a**hole in everyday situations: how to get out of being in a wedding, how to do less work while at work, how to handle a one-night stand, and even how to sell your friend's car for money (yes, it’s possible). Unfortunately, there were just some situations that you can’t a**hole your way out of as easily as you did while enrolled in an institution of higher learning. Here are 10 a**hole moves you can only get away with in college.
Drinking All Day
The all-day bender. Kegs and eggs. Sometimes it just needs to happen. The first beer gets cracked in the early morning hours and the rest of the day is a blur. It’s a staple of college life. It’s a terrible idea in the real world. Burning a vacation/sick day just to sit around and drink sounds like a fantastic idea until you actually need that extra day off from work and you’re stuck at a desk while the rest of the world is out having fun. Plus, the next day, when you go back to work, you feel like absolute cat turds. But sitting around drinking by yourself watching "Full House" was awesome in the moment! Kidding. It was dumb. Just trying to make you feel better.
Date a Girl and All Her Friends
Dating at college means picking from a very small dating pool. Even if you go to a major university with thousands and thousands of students, there always tends to be some type of overlap or “7 degrees of Megan’s Bacon,” if you know what I’m talking about. You could date a girl for a little while, it ends, and you end up playing horizontal hide the hambone with one of her friends the following weekend. Sure, there will be chick drama but everyone gets over it after a couple of months. Doesn’t happen like that after college. Friends are off limits. If you do end up with a friend of a former flame, it’s usually World War IV and years worth of drama. She better be worth it.
Sleep All Day
The last time I slept an entire day and didn’t move a muscle, I had the flu. It’s the only excuse you can use as to why you’re still in bed at 3 p.m. while the rest of the world goes about their business. In college you can sleep all day (usually the day after an all-day bender) and no one really notices or cares. Except your roommate. He wants you to get the hell up and start cleaning up all your empties.
Ditch Events
Class? Eh, not today. There's a "Family Matters" marathon starting in 10 minutes and you’ve got to finish the rest of that hoagie from dinner. College lets you pick and choose where you go and what you do every single day of the week. Sure, there are repercussions, but nothing you can’t talk your way out of. In real life, you could have the same attitude, but the penalties are much more severe. Losing a job and getting a D are two much different animals.
Talk Back to Authority
The way you talk to professors, resident assistants, and campus security is typical a**hole behavior that will probably get tolerated and overlooked unless you push it too far. Try that same attitude with a boss, landlord, or cop. Not going to work. Try anyway, let me know how it turns out. Get in touch with me with your one call from prison.
Ignore Your Health and Well Being
College makes you do some dumb shit. Drink heavily, experiment with drugs, eat crap for every meal, and put your personal well being in danger on a daily basis. It feels like you’re bullet proof. Well, you aren’t, and it’s all going to catch up with you some day.
Disappear
“Where you guys going? Road trip? For four days. Can I come? Let me get some things and tell no one where the hell I’m going. No one will notice. It’s college, people come and go all the time. One pair of underwear enough?” The most you can disappear while in school is maybe three days before someone comes looking for you. After college, a day at the most, and everyone in your life is wondering where the hell you are. Especially with social media, cell phones, and hundreds of other way to stay in touch. You’ll be found. Speaking of people looking for you...
Avoid Family and Friends for a Long Period of Time
You haven’t talked to your parents in a few weeks. It’s just that you’ve been so busy doing absolutely nothing, you’ve got no time to pick up a phone and tell them you’re still barely alive. Even if you don’t move back home after graduation, the contact with family is expected to at least be weekly. If not, your mother will just call you every day, 10 times a day, on your cell phone and work phone until you take her call.
Announce Your Every Stupid Move on Social Media
Remember how you told all your Facebook friends you got real banged up last night and ended up pissing in your own closet and microwaving a pair of socks because you thought they were a bean burrito? Funny stuff. Just don’t announce that stuff to the world after you get your diploma. It could lose you a job, a friendship, or get you in a whole hell of a lot more crap than it’s worth bragging about your stupidity. Save those updates for coffee with the guys before work. Yes, that’s what guys in the real world do.
Put On and Then Lose the “Freshman Fifteen”
Of course you can put on weight after you leave school, and you can lose it, but not as easily as you did for those four years. Especially the lose it part. During school, you still had the good metabolism plus tons of time on your hands to workout (and a free gym membership). In real life, you’ll have a job, responsibilities, and eventually a family that will help pack on pounds that you may never lose.
