At the beginning of the school year, there may come a time in your college life when you must make a major, possibly year-defining decision. This decision is unique to sophomores, juniors and seniors — freshmen are luckily exempt, at least at first.

It can arrive in many different situations, but for the sake of generalization it usually occurs drunkenly Downtown. It happens while you are jovially strutting around, or huddled with your buddies in a circle.

While scanning the crowd figuring out your next move, she, he or Rasa appears, and you are given a single opportunity to continue a pattern or veer away and overcome repetition. Should you let that magnetic force pull you toward your hookup buddy from last year, or should you try to fight it?

Putting aside any influential outside factors, the initial and easy decision would be to go for it — you should do it if you want to.

After a year, or even just a semester of hooking up with the same person, it is easy to fall back into a routine. The person is familiar and you feel comfortable with him/her, so what’s the point in searching for someone else?

A study titled “‘The ‘‘Booty Call’: A Compromise Between Men’s and Women’s Ideal Mating Strategies,” conducted by Peter K. Jonason at New Mexico State University, sought to find why a booty call, or hook-up buddy type relationship, occurs.

“We contend that as a consequence of men and women attempting to enact their ideal mating strategies, trade-offs occur and compromises may emerge not only in the types of mates men and women actually choose, but also in the type of relationships in which men and women find themselves,” Jonason found.

So if compromises are inherently being made, it is important to take a step back and evaluate if those compromises are worthwhile and healthy for you.

“I think it depends on how you treat each other over the summer,” said Christian Hall, a junior double-majoring in accounting and global business. “If you would like to continue hooking up the next school year, you have to hang out a few times during the summer.”

Maintaining contact over the summer implies a hook-up buddy relationship that is not strictly about sex, but possibly the additional bonus of friendship. In most cases one party has to go out of their way to see their hook-up buddy, whereas in school, hooking up is much more convenient.

If you didn’t maintain contact over the summer there is less of an incentive to continue hooking up the next school year. Therefore, making an effort can merit compromising your integrity for the sake of sexual contact, but not necessarily satisfaction.

Whether or not you and your hook-up buddy kept in contact over the summer, previous emotions and the dynamics between you two are also important factors in deciding if relapsing is a good idea.

Raina Fishkin, a junior majoring in biology, thinks that relapsing with an old hook-up buddy really depends on how serious your feelings are for one another.

“If there isn’t much basis for the relationship then you shouldn’t fight the urge to hook up with them again,” she said. “If it’s already a messy situation you should try to get out of it because it can affect your lifestyle. If it doesn’t mean much to the other party then what’s the point? It’s bad for you.”

Returning to the same person after being apart for periods of time could seem like you are settling, which is easier than holding out for the challenge of a serious relationship.

In Jonason’s study, women who partook in hook-up buddy type relationships did it in hopes of it turning into a long-term relationship. Having an expectation like that, or any expectations for that matter, is a telltale sign that you should not be having casual sex in the first place.

In the event that you do decide to continue hooking up with your hook-up buddy from last year, there is the possibility it will not feel the same between you two, even if you ended on a good note last year. Sometimes relapsing is simply meant for closure.