10 steps to saying goodnight to a girl:

Step 1: Sway closer and further away from her with your arms somewhat extended so that you are ready for any hugging that might occur.

Step 2: Keep talking. Talk about anything. Talk about what happened today. Talk about your dreams for the future. Talk about why you don’t believe in John McCain’s tax cuts. Talk about how disgusted you are with gender-norms. Continue on that subject; hoping that she’ll get the hint that you probably won’t make the first move. Talk about other girls you find attractive. Try to stop talking about that, but continue to. Dig yourself a deeper and deeper grave for your slow and painful death by foot-in-mouth disease. Say things like “She’s really cool. I mean she’s alright. She’s doable. I’m just saying she’s a fun person. We’re gonna hang out in LA. Maybe I can get some. Just kidding. Sort of.” Wish you hadn’t started speaking. Wish you hadn’t started living.

Step 3: Start to suggest something that the two of you can do so that your night together won’t end. Don’t think about what you are going to suggest before you start your sentence though. Just start with: “Hey, we should…” and hope that the rest of the sentence will come to you. It won’t, but it will provide an excellent back and forth that involves a lot of “What’s?” and “What do you mean?'s” Remember English isn’t her first language and it’s four in the morning, it is very difficult for her to understand your mumbling ramblings about how you’re sorry for not thinking of something to do before speaking. Think about what would happen if you just made a dash for your room. You are leaving tomorrow, so you probably won’t have to see her again. Decide that you should stick around because if you run, there is no way she Facebook friends you, and then how would you show pictures of her to your friends?

Step 4: Make sure she catches you staring at her breasts. If possible make it look like you are zoning out with your eyes completely focused on her cleavage. Let a pleasant smile creep over your face. While you’re at it, register yourself as a sex-offender.

Step 5: Go in for a hug in the middle of one of her sentences. Nothing says “I am listening” more than interrupting her story with a physical attack. Realize that her breasts are pressing up against your chest. Realize that everything is okay.

Step 6: Ask her to continue her story after you finish hugging. Nothing is less awkward than extending a conversation after both parties say good bye. After she initially refuses, insist that she finishes what she was saying in order to prove you are a decent guy who is interested in the things she has to say, not just the things she has protruding from her chest. Keep trying to convince yourself of this while she is talking so that you don’t hear a word of her story.

Step 7: Tell her all the French you know. This consists of the words, hello, yes, and shit. This does not extend the conversation in any way.

Step 8: Say good bye again and go in for another hug. While holding the hug think about how you could physically maneuver your bodies so that they are kissing. Find no way that this is possible. Hold the hug longer, thinking that there may be a way that you just haven’t thought of yet. Realize she is trying to push away. Apologize and turn in shame.

Step 9: Go to your room only to realize that you have to go to the bathroom. Go back to bathroom - take a long piss. Look in the mirror. Tell yourself that that was the last time that you won’t make a move when you’ve had so many opportunities. You just needed to take one of them. You were in the kitchen cooking together. You even fed her pasta sauce on one of those big wooden spoon. You could have easily took a sip off the other side, and then pulled a lady and the tramp with the wooden spoon. You were in the Sauna together. Just the two of you in a locked wooden room where the purpose is getting sweaty. All the other members of your group had either gone to sleep or started hooking up – hooking up being the only reason they didn’t come to the sauna. When you got to the sauna two people were hooking up in there. When you were walking up the stairs, two people were hooking up in the stairwell. Hooking up was happening all around you, so you just needed to extend the hooking up to yourself. You could have even just made a funny kidding-on-the-square comment about how she should hook up with you so that you two could fit in. The guy walking down the hall who saw us going to the sauna had made one. He had said “Looks like love is in the air.” To you. To you and the hot French Canadian girl in the short booty shorts and skimpy lacey top who had changed specifically to go hang out with you in a sauna. A sauna that was known as the place to hook up. Though, you had been in the sauna five times now and not ever hooked up. Why not make it six? Flip off the mirror and walk out the door resolving that if you see her again in the morning before you leave, or whatever, that you will just take her to a private area and dip her down and start making out with her all romantic-like, and then say “Just thought we should get that over with before I leave. I know we’ve both wanted it.” Then leave. You will be soooo bad-ass.

Step 10: See her coming out of another bathroom at the same time as you get out of yours. She doesn’t see you and turns away to go to her room. Pretend not to see her and walk back to your room. Wish that you weren’t staying in a hostel so that you could have some private time before going to bed.