Well, it's that time of year again when you get to lose sleep over who you are going to ask to your formal!

Not to mention -- break your bank account purchasing a dress that you are going to wear for exactly six hours tops and then let collect dust in your closet for the remainder of the year.

Here's some advice: Date Party doesn't define you.

So, you aren't sure who to ask. All of your friends have boyfriends and they just don't understand the intense struggle of mustering up the courage to ask someone you don't know very well. I know trying to find a date when your love life is about on par with where it was when you were 6-years-old can seem like an almost-impossible mission, but it really isn't something to get stressed over. After all, you have options. If you're feeling bold, maybe ask a boy who you clicked with once at a party. Or if you have enough faith in your friends, have them set you up with a guy they know. After all, who knows our tastes better than the girls who have stayed up with us until 4 a.m. downing bottles of wine and crying about our failed attempts at finding true love? Or if you aren't feeling as adventurous, bring one of your close guy friends. They will be extremely fun, you won't have to worry about them being a train wreck of a date, and you won't feel guilty about forcing them to take eight thousand pictures with you.

So, the first boy you ask says no. Because he's busy for his mom's birthday, or he already made plans to get wasted with his friends that night, or he's just one of those questionable individuals who doesn't like the concept of looking nice and eating free food and hanging out with a really cool girl for a whole night. That's OK. It's not something to stress over. Just because one boy says no to having a good time doesn't mean hundreds of other guys wouldn't love the opportunity to be in your Instagram picture for the night and make a fool of himself trying to impress you while dancing to club music in a dress shirt and tie. A boy saying no to you doesn't mean you aren't good enough for him. Whatever his reason, all it means is that he will be missing the opportunity to eat food and get drunk and dance on a dance floor that isn't lined with mud and spilled alcohol, so who's really at loss here?

So, you don't have the time or money to buy a new dress. Borrow someone else's. If you have good taste in friends, one of them is bound to have something that will look cute on you. Or, if none of your friends' dresses look quite right, just wear one of your old ones. If anyone calls you out for being an outfit repeater, that's a red flag that they have some personal issues that they should be dealing with, not you.

And just a reminder: This is not senior prom. You're not lining up on the side of a pool and standing in prom pose with 10 other couples for 30 minutes, trying to keep the bobby pins from falling out of your hair while your mom fights back tears and your dad's arms start to ache from holding the camera up to his face for so long. This is college date party. You aren't supposed to care that much. It's one of the rare nights in college when you can get drunk and dance in a nice dress and heals instead of wearing muddy, jungle juice-covered sneakers in a pitch black basement. It should be something to get excited about, a welcome change, not something to stress about and lose sleep over. So many people care too much about such insignificant things. Do you think you're even going to remember who you took to one of your college date parties in five years? 10? Will you remember anything about the night? Don't stress about something that is meant to be fun. Just enjoy it. Take a lot of pictures (some for you, some for your mom who will be anxiously texting you the whole night asking how things are going), eat a lot of food, and dance enough that you don't feel bad about skipping the gym the next morning.

Bottom line: stop stressing about the little things. Care a little bit less and let life just happen a little more. Much more likely than not, no matter who you bring or what you wear or how you do your hair or if you get your eyebrows waxed or not, you will end up having just as much fun as you would have had if your outcome for the night was completely different. Just take a deep breath and remember that date party is supposed to be a fun night to, at the very least, eat good food and dance with your friends and get a record-breaking number of likes on your Instagram picture. But it does not define you as a person. So do yourself a favor: Don't stress, be positive,and enjoy one of the few nights of the semester when you actually get to look as good as you usually think you look while drunk-dancing with your friends to ghetto music and strobe lights.