More than hair gel, fake tans, being "classy," or clothes with holes ripped in them, the most important thing to the young men and women of Seaside Heights, New Jersey, is hooking up. Here is how it all goes down.

Of course the mating rituals of the wild creatures on MTV's eight-guidos-in-a-house social experiment are part of the larger sociology of the clan, and everything that these kids engage in is in some way to help them hook up. Most of this happens in clubs with one word names like Karma, Bamboo, and Headliners. This is their mating ground, where they all swim against the current of misogyny and self-hatred to try to find a real connection. If they can't find a connection, then a momentary, drunken distraction will do.

Aside from the appearance—the muscles, the hair, the poof, the tattoos, the accessories—the most important element in the mating ground is clothing. For women, the best articles are tight and form fitting, preferably with holes torn in them. Jeans should be ripped, not to expose more skin, but to give the men the illusion that their pants are ready to be ripped off and ravaged, just like their bodies. They favor a special type of jersey (the fabric, not the state) shirt where slits are cut out of the fabric and it is then stretched and strained so that the skin—preferably around the back and bust areas—is exposed. This gives the same effect. It's a peek of what is underneath, but it is also an invitation to be rough.

Messages on clothing are also a big deal for the ladies, who prefer to sport seemingly negative slogans like "pornstar in training," "tell your eyes to stop staring at my tits," or "dirty filthy bitch" on their clothing. These are both a mark of their confidence and the internalized misogyny that attracts their male counterparts and plays to their strange mixture of cockiness and insecurity in the face of emasculation.

Oddly, for the male, the desired articles of clothing should be baggy, which doesn't seem to make sense, since they all spend so much time working on what is underneath. Unlike gay men, they never remove their shirts in the sacred space of the nightclub. Especially for the circuitus puer Americans, a subspecies of gay men that also sports tribal markings on a synthetically enlarged frame, the point is to arrive at their mating grounds and remove as much clothing as possible. Their plumage is their physical shape. For the guido the plumage instead is ornately printed, metallic or gemstone-embellished T-shirts that hang off their frames and jeans baggy enough to trip a small child that might be passing their spindly legs. They have to save "the situation" for the Jacuzzi.

Now that we know where to look for and what they'll be wearing, we need a few more lessons on their sophisticated patois so that we will be able to understand the guidos and guidettes in their natural habitat:

  • Dipped Off: To physically leave a place, usually a club, secretly. Usually this is to procure drinking water and the species main source of sustenance: ham.
  • Experience: To engage with a person non-sexually and decide that he or she is no longer desirable as in "I experience you already, and now I want to forget you."
  • Pay-Per-View Event: A momentous happening, like getting into an SUV limo to roll to the club.
  • Shore Store Whore: The name of the female employees at the Shore Store, as printed on their shirts.
  • "I'm out": 1. To be leaving a specific location for another one. 2. To be finished with a certain situation, like a relationship, an argument, or a job usually when immediately before the end of that situation causes the party to physically leave a specific location.
  • "I'm done": To be finished with a certain situation, like a relationship, an argument, or a job, but in a location that the person is not yet ready to physically leave.
  • Honestly: An emphatic to stress how deeply someone feels an emotion. This has nothing to do with the truth whatsoever and, in fact, is more often used in an instance where the speaker is actually lying.
  • Mistake: Hooking up with another person when you have a significant other.
  • The Fucking Phone: A phone, but only when someone the speaker doesn't want to talk to is on the other end. Conversely, it can also be when the speaker is calling someone who doesn't want to talk to him.
  • Knock a Bitch Up: This does not mean to get a girl pregnant, it actually means to punch a girl in the face. Don't get confused.

While we're talking about girls getting punched in the face, let us again talk about the promo of Snooki getting slammed in the snout that caused MTV so much trouble. When the network aired the promo last week, the clip circled the internet and outraged many who thought it glorified violence towards women. Next week is the episode where the event actually occurs and MTV showed the incident again. Yes, we know the network has to promote its programming, but wouldn't the footage of her crying and bloody in the bathroom and him getting arrested be enough to get us to tune in (shit, we'd tune in if they showed Vinny trying to clean the champagne and potato chip residue out of the hot tub)? Knowing that the promo upset so many people last week, airing it again was bad form.

And speaking of bad form, let us see how these wonderful creatures mate in the dark and blinking nightclub scene of the Jersey Shore.

Hook Ups: As commenter LatestBy said in last night's live blog this scene has a hot tub, champagne, girl-on-girl action, and a trucker hat. It is like Jersey Shore Mad Libs.

More importantly, it shows that all behavior, even homosexual behavior, is meant to attract a heterosexual partner. And Snoggie's plan worked, because immediately after making out with her friend Ryder (it is a name and a directive), she hooks up with The Situation in a hot tub situation.

That was almost the only romantic situation The Situation found himself in last night, because he spent most of it moping about the fact that Sammi (the Helen of Toy) was getting with Righteous Ronnie and not with him. Ronnie took as much glee in getting his ships launched by Sammi as he did by besting his romantic rival. It's about the competition as much as it is about the conquest. Their feelings deepened throughout the evening, and Ronnie even took Sammi out on a date of go-karts and mini golf. Because a man isn't worth having if he won't fight for her, Sammi SoSo invited The Situation to join their situation. He rightly declined, because the only threeways he wants to engage in involved two girls. Ronnie, on the other hand, might take the opportunity to cross swords.

In much worse shape were Trash Bags and her boyfriend, Hefty, who dumped her shortly after showing up at the shore to hang out with Trash Bags and her interchangeable friends Alana and Elena. There was little explanation given. Then, thanks to Alana or Elena (it doesn't matter which, they share a hive mind) we found out that Hefty is married to Erica, the matriarch of the Glad Family of Products, so he isn't even available. Oh, but they're getting a divorce. Way to stay "classy," Trash Bags.

ShamWOWW's boyfriend Vince Shlomi also came down for a visit and brought his friend Billy Mays. He brought red roses and baby's breath that he bought from a lady with three teeth on Rte. 35 ten minutes before arriving. Red roses and baby's breath are a natural aphrodisiac to the guidette, because they read as "classy" while still being "trashy" at the same time. Nothing makes them wetter. It will also postpone them from telling you that they saw another man's penis piercing just the night before. After a night out on the town and an early morning cuddling in the guest room, Vince tells ShamWOWW that if she ever cheats on him it's over. She decides right then and there that she isn't going to tell him about DJ Paulie's D.

Small Equipment: Last week we learned that Snoodi the Time-Life Operator has a hard time working the duck phone. This week a near disaster was averted on the barbecue grill. It appears that the guido has a hard time operating small machinery. It may be because these things do not get them laid so, therefore, they hare no vested interest in figuring out how they work.

In this instance, The Situation wants to get the grilling situation started so he asks DJ Paulie Dynomite to light the grill. He fills a gas grill with charcoal and then lights the whole thing on fire, which creates a small burning sensation similar to ShamWOWW's first bout with the clap, Vinny's run in with fat-lady-ass-induced Pink eye, or the UTI that DJ Paulie Disinfectant got when he pierced his schlong. Luckily they put it out. Even though they almost died, they decide to still use the grill. This only makes them look like fools in front of the women, which will keep them from getting laid.

Cooking food is not necessary for food and opposite-sex attention. That is why Snoozie only eats pickles. Well, she doesn't so much eat them as suck them in a manner that simulates oral sex. Though she calls everyone "pervs" for watching her do this, she does it out in the open and likes to talk about it, in order to encourage their idea that she can, indeed, suck the juice out of a pickle.

As we discovered last week, the hardest machine for the guidos to operate is the phone. Trash Bags boyfriend Hefty tells her he never wants her to call him on the "fucking phone" again. Then, when she leaves the club, what does he do? He calls her on the "fucking phone." She has forgotten how to use it and will not speak to him. Ronnie is in the middle of this and decides that he is no longer interested in holding a duck-shaped piece of plastic and hangs up. At least he knows how to work it.

ShamWOWW is also confused as to just how this technology functions. She calls her man Vince and he asks what's wrong and she says "I don't want to talk." Isn't talking sort of the point of initiating a phone call? Once she figures this out, the only thing she can tell him is that she made a "mistake" with another guy. He hangs up on her and ends their relationship. It appears that the only thing a guido can do with small equipment is shut it off.

Work: Some guidos like to work, some do not. The only thing Vinny did all episode was to show up to work on time. He was not rewarded for his effort.

Trash Bags on the other hand, decided she wasn't going to work, and failed to show up. When she did show up, it was to explain that she was sick or hung over or had a problem with her boyfriend or just didn't care about her job as a whore at the shore store. After all, she is a very very important bartender who does important things.

Later Bossman Danny comes by the house to have a word with Trash Bags. She will only talk to him in the bathroom. This is because there is a toilet nearby. If he is about to fire her or put her in an awkward situation, she will put her finger down her throat and induce vomiting. This will give her puke breath. She will then be able to defend herself against her boss, possibly killing him with her breath and taking over the store for herself. Either that or it is just because she feels comfortable there because all of her favorite things—blowing out her hair, blowing lines, and blowing—all often happen there.

Because she won't work, Trashy has to pack her Bags and leave. And that's just what she does, and we get to see her black plastic exit only a few days after we saw her make her remarkable entrance. This time, though, one of her trash bags was transparent. How apt.

Dancing: Dancing is the easiest way to go from "vibing" to hooking up in a nightclub, especially when one has patented movies like Ronnie's. One can also use dancing to get attention and start a party, like when Snapple and Ryder start dancing in an empty bar. All the men start staring at them. Their movement announces that they are looking to "vibe" with members of the opposite sex.

Dancing can also get a boy into trouble, just ask Ronnie, whose dancing with another girl upsets Sammi SoSo much that she starts flirting with her friend Mike the Cop (is he the one who arrests Snadiddlybob's attacker next week?). Just like we saw last week with ShamWOWW and DJ Paulie Dancing Machine, once you start dancing with a girl, it quickly leads to the horizontal hula, and that is what Sammi thinks is going to happen. The guidette is extremely territorial for a sluts. When Ronnie finds out Sammi has been flirting with another guy, he is so upset he leaves the club with ShamWOWW. Then, Sammi, after declaring just a minute ago that she was "done" with Ronnie, is now ready to fight over him.

She doesn't get the situation, which is that The Situation is making out with the skank blond that Ronni has just been shaking it with on the dance floor. Way to over react, Sweetheart.

There are all sorts of inconsistencies of logic that can be blamed on the blindness of love. ShamWOWW may have hooked up with DJ Paulie Dangerous while she had a boyfriend, but when Sammi flirts with another guy, she tells Ronnie, because she doesn't want him to be embarrassed. Um, what? It's also like when DJ Paulie Double-faced says that he'll hook up with a girl with a boyfriend, but if his girlfriend cheated on him, he'd dump her. Say what? It's all such a difficult tango to understand.

Native Tongue:

Paulie: "JWOWW is playing it off like she didn't really kiss me. She knows very well what we did, she just doesn't want to feel like a trash bag because she kissed me with tongue."

Snooki: "I eat [a pickle] a specific way. I suck the juice out first."

Ronnie: "I'm not going to shit where I sleep. I'm not going to cuddle with you. I don't cuddle."

Paulie: "If JWOWW was my girl I'd break up with her in a second. Your girl shouldn't be out there dancing like that, lifting up her skirt, and I already made out with her. So I think [her boyfriend] is a sucker if you ask me."

Trash Bags: "It was common courtesy for me to even walk over there."

The Situation: "If you're so stupid that you want to leave during the summertime. I'm gonna let you leave."

Trash Bags: "I feel like leaving will hurt me in the end, but right now, I wanna do it."

ShamWOWW: "If I'm single, they got a fucking problem on their hands, because I've been like fucking Suzie fucking Homemaker over here. I've been like a nun, a Catholic nun for all I know."

ShamWOWW: I'm going to show my true side, my true dirty, filthy, fucking side."

Paulie: "The fact that JWOWW broke up with her boyfriend means she'll feel less guilty when she hooks up with me."

Snooki: "Mike [The Situation] shows his good side and he shows his jerk-off side. That's what I like, a good guy and a jerk-off."

Snooki: "Fuck my fucking asshole right now."

ShamWOWW: "I go to Ronnie and said, 'You better check your girl because she's disrespecting you.' I feel like he's getting played and that's embarrassing."