College is supposed to be the time of your life (apparently). No one tells you how hard adulting is, though, or how much pressure you will feel in choosing your degree (sorry, optimistic freshmen), but that’s also the beauty of college: you become so incredibly independent. However, with that independence comes a time to really figure out who you are and what you want. For me, I would never classify myself as an “introvert” because of the negative connotations that seem to go along with the label: painfully shy, lazy, never wanting to do anything -- you get the idea. But for the purpose of this article, I don’t really know what else to call it. It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t too into the whole “party scene” -- seeing people interact in the most superficial way possible just wasn’t for me. Staying home or doing anything else sounded just as fun, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that.
In high school, I would typically skip going out on a Saturday night to hang out with a few close friends and do something with just us, and I never found anything wrong with that. But it wasn’t until my early college years where I thought this was “wrong” because, let's be honest, the stereotypical portrayal of college in Hollywood relies heavily on the insanely good-looking, half-naked college students doing keg stands at a house party, and I just don’t fit into that prototype. So, evidently, college has made me sort of introverted, even though I hate to use that label. (And for the record, this is not a bad thing at all -- it just means you know what you like and what you don’t like.)
The most amazing part about this was that I attracted the same kind of people into my life -- people who like to have fun and go to parties, but not every night, all nights of the week, and they know their limits. The most important part of this was finding like-minded people who could support me in my not wanting to go out to parties every night, but also helped find something else we all enjoyed doing together instead.
Now, don’t get me wrong: your girl loves to have a good time, whether that is going to a party and watching all of the drunk people spill their drinks and slur their words, or reading a book by myself on a Saturday night -- it's all valid. And just because you don’t want to go out with your friends doesn’t make you “lazy” or “boring.” It means you are putting yourself first, which is an essential skill in the adult world.
So, whether you are into the party scene or not, don’t be that friend who peer pressures someone into going to that party with you when they clearly don’t want to, because that’s just not cool. And to my fellow (sort of) introverted people out there, keep doing you and what you like; cheers to you for knowing who you are and not compromising yourself for anyone else.
