Lessons in Love from the Jersey Shore

While we were snowed in this weekend, we somehow ended up watching a marathon of Jersey Shore.

We don’t usually get sucked into reality TV, but Jersey Shore is like eavesdropping on your neighbor’s divorce—or slowly watching eight 20-somethings develop skin cancer.

Anyway, we weren’t watching that closely, but we did notice two female characters (castmates?) had dramatically ways of approaching the summer fling.

First, there’s everyone’s favorite housemate, Snooki. Snooki is like the ugly friend of all the popular girls who thinks flirting means getting black-out and acting like a total ditz. We say “like” because the other girls aren’t much better. But Snooki is definitely the least attractive girl in the house, and she acts like she knows it.

Snooki blows it with every guy she hits on. She makes out with a girl in a hot tub full of people (and admits that she’s doing it “for the guys”), and then, two seconds later, makes out with one of the guys, who seems to recoil in disgust. She manages to get one guy to spend the night with her on the beach, but he seems to regain dignity as he sobers up, and they don’t do anything.

Snooki seems to approach things with a “this is who I am, deal with it” attitude. This makes great television, but does little for her lovelife.

Lesson 1: Getting sloppy is never sexy. For whatever reason, some girls don’t get this. They think it shows that they’re fun, or that they can keep up with the guys. Or they just think they need to get that drunk to make a move.

But there’s nothing less attractive than a drunk girl. If you don’t believe us, check out the “Drunk Girl” skits on SNL. We’re not saying you should abstain from alcohol all together, but don’t get plastered in front of a guy you like.

Lesson 2: Don’t be too aggressive. We’re not saying guys aren’t turned on by girl-on-girl make-outs. But forced girl-on-girl make-outs (i.e., making out with your best friend to impress a group of guys) don’t make you look good.

When the guys went back to the confessional, no one said, “The way Snooki grabbed that chick, yo, I dunno, I’d never realized how sexy she was before, yo.” They kind of said, “That was wild,” but they didn’t sound that excited about it.

Then there was the way Snooki literally grabbed The Situation (because we refused to call him by any other name) and shoved her tongue down this throat. He kind of pulled away at first, and, again, we didn’t get a confessional like, “Oh man, yo, when she grabbed me I was all, ‘Damn girl!’”, which roughly translates to, “I wasn’t interested.”

Check back tomorrow for our review of Sammi’s successes (and failures).

International Make-Out Artist: Sufjan Stevens

So what, exactly, is the international make-out song?

The summer before college, a lot of guys who spent their high school years dry humping pillows anticipate the transition to bro-dom and decide to learn guitar. Most Dispatch songs can be played with only one or two chords, so the training isn’t especially difficult, and a guitar coupled with shaggy longish hair is the shortest way into a girl’s heart (and pants).

International make-out songs, in theory, are songs that are so easy to play that 1) any bro can learn to play them with Google and a half hour, 2) said bros can sit on their beds in their freshmen dorms with their doors open and play said songs over and over until the cute girl from down the hall comes in and says, “Ohmygod, I love Dashboard!”, and 3) said girl will immediately begin to make out with said bro, and the songs are so simple that the bro doesn’t even have to stop playing while swapping spit.

Famous international make-out songs include Dashboard’s “Screaming Infedilities,” Dispatch’s “Out Loud,” and Oasis’s “Wonderwall.”

International make-out songs, by definition, have to be slightly obscure. Not so obscure that people haven’t heard of them, but obscure enough that they’re hard to find on the radio. But now that the “bro” identity has taken a definite turn towards hipster, we’ve noticed that international make-out songs are more and more likely to be found on Pitchfork.

The newest international make-out artist? Sufjan Stevens. Beloved by hipsters and evangelical Christians alike, this guy makes girls want to take their pants off (even though he’s probably saving it for marriage).

Bros, ready your tabs.









And of course, the one everyone’s heard: