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My guess is that the pasta mentioned above is spaghetti "aglio olio e peperoncino" (garlic, olive oil, red pepper), so not just olive oil.

Could be the recipe with the highest ratio taste/effort you can find, something that even a drunk student can pull off a 4 in the morning, so they probably just continued their tradition from the university years

It was most likely garlic and olive oil (and salt and pasta water).

Buttered noodles are good, I have no a priori reason that simple oil wouldn't be also.

Butter emulsifies into a sauce just from the residual heat of the spaghetti (and some mechanical action - stirring, pan flip, etc)

Oil needs a bit more help, otherwise it's just grease on noodles. The starchy water the pasta was cooked in can do most of the heavy lifting there, but the addition of garlic helps too.