Ben Kaufman

Presentation Director

The first word that comes to my mind when I think of hallcest is “ew.” But first, hallcest should probably be defined. In my opinion, hallcest is the act of either hooking up or dating somebody on your residence hall. Although there are rare times that it works out to date someone on your hall, from what I have seen, it usually only ends badly. Here is an example as to why I think that.

I have a friend–we’ll call him Joe–at Binghamton University in Upstate New York. He and his girlfriend met because they lived on the same hall their first year. The story sounds really cute up until the point when they decided to live on the same hall sophomore year as well and broke up at one point. Joe began planning his normal routine around the fact that his girlfriend lived on his hall. For example, he would always get coffee from his girlfriend’s room and then go to class, as well as form other plans with her when he would return from class. However, when they were broken up, that obviously wouldn’t happen, and he therefore had to find a new routine.

I actually told my girlfriend that if we went to the same school, I would not want to live on the same hall as her. It always seems to turn out that if you are in a relationship with someone on your hall, you literally have no time to yourself. It is almost like living with your girlfriend or boyfriend, because whenever you go back to your hall your girlfriend or boyfriend will be there too.

However, I will not completely bash hallcest because sometimes it does work. For example, there is a guy in my fraternity who started dating a girl from his first-year hall, and they are still together despite having always lived in very close proximity. I will acknowledge that hallcest is something that can be successful, but I just don’t think it is something I could do.

On this campus, I feel like hallcest mostly ends in awkward situations. It most likely starts as a hookup at a party, which then progresses to an awkward morning realization that you hooked up with somebody on your hall and then you go from there. And if it’s your first-year hall, you don’t even know the person that well and then you start hooking up or dating him or her.

Hallcest is a tricky situation. I think if it is managed well, then it could probably work. Although it can work, it is not an endeavor I would personally want to go through. Knowing the nature of hallcest, I feel like it would only end in awkwardness and not actually be something practical. If you are currently dating someone on your hall and it is going well, then good for you. I just personally don’t think that I–and I probably speak for many others–would be able to do it and have it end well.