First, sleep with someone. They could either be someone you know or someone you don’t know. It could also be someone you sort of know. Just make sure that it’s someone.
Then, wake up in the morning and realize that someone you know or don’t know or sort of know is in your bed. Register that that is strange. Almost against nature. Play a game where you pretend like you’re a huge creep and stare at their face while they sleep. Acting is fun!
Check to see if you have an embarrassing book on your bedside table: It’s Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Eff.
Carefully get up so as not to wake the person next to you and quickly switch out Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince with one of your two unread copies of Infinite Jest. Throw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince out the window but note where it lands so you can pick it up later.
Contemplate brushing your teeth but then think that if your teeth are brushed and the other person’s teeth aren’t brushed that just makes that person feel bad, which is actually fine with you, but your minty-fresh breath might lead them to use your toothbrush, which is gross. Then reflect that in the grand scheme of things, considering what you did last night, maybe you should just relax about them possibly using your toothbrush. Vow to throw your toothbrush out regardless, it’s time you got a new one anyway.
Lie back in bed, trying not to move, but attempt to conjure the other person to wake up. It’s basically like you’re Matilda lifting a piece of chalk with your mind, except you’re you, willing a questionable decision from last night to rise. Pretty much the same thing. To clarify: You’re Matilda and the person next to you is a piece of chalk. Curse yourself for purchasing such a comfortable mattress that is causing this person to be in a deep slumber. Damn your impeccable taste.
When they finally do wake up, panic that you might have something in your nose, but try to keep calm. Resist the urge to cover your entire face with a pillow and smother yourself until you’re dead.
This is a fucking nightmare.
Get up and try not to sprint to your clothes, because you might fall and hit your head and then you’d be lying there naked and unconscious in an awkward folded position and that would not look cute. The person might not even call an ambulance for you because of how not cute you look.
Agree to go for breakfast and try your best to put on a cool outfit. Check three times before you walk out the door to make sure that you’ve put on pants.
Eat breakfast and note that the person has subpar table manners. How have they survived this long without being told to chew with their mouth closed? Exactly who raised them? A wolf? A lion? Sure, that would be cool, but not to go home to for the holidays. If they chew with their mouth open, does that mean that they lied about not having a disease? Probably.
Recall your last one-night stand where the person texted a few days later to say that they couldn’t hang out because their friend’s cat was sick. Remember how you thought no one could top that amazingly stupid, ego-crippling, so-bad-it’s-funny way to blow you off, but, looking at the wolf/lion person across from you, you realize that they could be capable of something similar. Try to make yourself feel better by humming “The Circle of Life.” It doesn’t work, and now the person is looking at you weird. Ugh, whatever, you’re weird, WEIRDO. And anyway, you should like that song, seeing as how you were raised by a LION. Pray that you didn’t say all that out loud.
When you part, try to make a joke by shaking their hand, except they go in for the hug. Look around for the closest sharp object to stab yourself in the heart with or a blunt object to hit the person over the head with, hopefully causing amnesia so they will have no recollection of you or the night, and maybe they can start from scratch with the whole table manners thing.
Finally say goodbye.
Three minutes later text the person that your friend’s cat is sick so even if they wanted to hang out you wouldn’t be able to. Nailed it.
Retrieve your copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince from the ground outside, go upstairs and read alone in your comfortable bed. The natural order of things has been restored.