Contrary to what I said a few days ago,

sex is evidently NOT the one thing I really wanted for my birthday, because a somewhere-between-acquaintance-and-friend of mine came to celebrate my birthday with me, proceeded to finish the last few shots of a bottle of cake vodka straight from the bottle after he was already drunk because we'd just won two games of three-on-three beirut (which some of you may inaccurately refer to as "beer pong"), walked me home, and then asked if I wanted him to come in, and I sent him home. He's slightly taller than me, not unattractive, and I've known him since I was a freshman. But as soon as he started getting flirty last night, I started repeating a little mantra in my head: 'Do not sleep with ****.' 

The question is, why? 

1. Okay, well, he used to date a friend of mine. And before you say that that obviously hasn't stood in my way before, I mean with a good friend of mine, and it ended badly, rather than with an acquaintance who later became a friend and after a situation that ended at least somewhat harmoniously. And he had a weird interaction with the good friend of mine whom he used to date once last year after getting similarly drunk at an open bar at Quad and from what she told me was kind of harassing her. And he may have been in a relationship then, because he was dating a girl seriously enough to be sharing a car with her when I ran into him on the train like a month later. (Hmm. There may not need to be more reasons after this, but I will continue anyway.)
2. I once hooked up (though only 2 bases worth) with his current roommate, who had also been at my little birthday celebration, but left before he started getting all touchy-feely. But feelings had actually been involved in that hookup, and I wouldn't want the guy I didn't do anything with to brag to the guy I did stuff with, because though we were never anything but friends, guy-I-did-stuff-with matters to me.  Though attractive somewhere-between-friend-and-acquaintance is like, the perfect level of knowing someone to develop a buddy, which is not unappealing to me at this time, I'm just uncomfortable at the idea of becoming involved in any way with roommates, particularly roommates for whom my level-of-caring-about differs so greatly.
3. There was neither pretense of romance or lust. In the past, I have been fine with one or the other leading to sex, but just we're both drunk and we're both single is insufficient reasoning. I'm not necessarily against doing something just because it's there, but...idk. It just didn't feel right in this case (though this was heavily influenced by reasons 1 and 2). Changing the terms of a relationship is a tricky situation, and I felt no need to introduce sex into ours, I suppose. I have learned that I can be physically intimate with people I am emotionally intimate with, either in the course of romantic relationships or friendships that won't be complicated by seeing the person often, and that I can be physically intimate with someone with whom I have no emotional connection at all, but anywhere between these sections of the spectrum is dangerous territory, it seems. In retrospect, it almost seems like he felt entitled to hooking up with me because I have established a capacity for casual sex, and no one is entitled to the wonder that is me but me. Forever fact. 

Anyway, five minutes after I'd sent him home, I was opening YouPorn and preparing for a little private birthday fun with The Conqueror and wondering why I didn't let him stick around to be part of it...but when I put it like this, that wondering ceases and I'm glad I don't lose my ability to be rational and make smart decisions when I've been drinking for hours. Important life skills ftw.

Question for furthering pondering that this analysis prompts: I have firm beliefs about which practices constitute safe sex from a physical standpoint. Should I establish a similar set list of situations/things that constitute safe sex from a personal (or even emotional) standpoint? I conceptualize overall safety in more ways than just physical...thus it seems like I should conceptualize other things for which I have developed specific ways of being safe in terms of more things than just the physical too. Does that make sense? This was a situation in which I was uncomfortable hooking up, and I want to think more about other such situations. To a hypothetical better understanding of safe sex!