We've all seen our fair share of teen/college party movies--practically every flick with a protagonist aged 15-25 has some wild party scene, especially if the bulk of the plot takes place in a high school or college setting. I've seen so many of these specific types of scene that I could write my own: teens everywhere, whooping and hollering, pulsing beat emanating through some poor yuppies' house, kegs and solo cups everywhere in sight. Though these movies exaggerate just a tad, there's a lot of truth of their portrayal of young adult social life, especially on the college level.

The first party I ever went to was one of my first weekends in college. I originally began my college career at a small private university in the roughest party of the city, but despite the echoing of gunshots on a semi-regular basis, we trudged six or seven blocks to get to some run-down house where people were, predictably, blasting horrible music and sitting around a card table drinking. As tempting as it was to take a sip of a senior sorority girl's lukewarm mimosa, I passed on all things alcoholic and watched everyone make asses of themselves on a floor-to-ceiling stripper pole placed right smack in the middle of the foyer. I spent the rest of that evening sitting on a filthy couch explaining to some guy I'd just met that no, I didn't think my girlfriend would hook up with him.

Despite this less-than-enthralling experience, I found myself at yet another party a few weekends later in the same neighborhood. This time, I stayed for a total of maybe twenty minutes; as exciting as it was to listening to people fornicate against a bathroom door and watching people from my 10 am Christianity class grind on each other, I couldn't quite muster up the willpower to stay. I headed back to my dorm at almost one in the morning, tripping and falling on the sidewalk in my hurry to get the hell away from it all.

More than anything, I felt confused about why people even wanted to go to these sorts of parties. Nobody really did anything. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that people just stood in corners cursing at each other and laughing about things that are really more sad than funny. No one was having any real conversation or having any human interaction: the whole thing was centered on whatever type of alcohol was available, and if there was no alcohol, there was no party.

So my question became this: why is drinking "cool?" Why is it something that every freshman students jumps at the opportunity to do, and something that they do until they find themselves stumbling around in a stupor? Why is it cool to break the law (if you're underage), poison your body, and endanger the people around you?

Truly, I don't understand. Alcohol, people forget, is a drug. It serves to alter your mood and make you lose your inhibition--so truly, some people do use it to have fun, which I find sad. Are some people really so boring, or unhappy with the people they're hanging out with, that they have to literally drug themselves in order to feel good?

And moreover, why is it fun to act like an idiot? The happening thing among some college students, I guess, is to drink yourself into such a stupor that you don't even know who you're looking at in the dark and end up grabbing someone's genitalia because you thought they were someone else (as a sidetone, grabbing ANYONE'S genitals unexpectedly is not okay, even if you do know them). The cool thing to do is to poison your body to the point that you wake up sick and in pain. It's cool to act like a belligerent jackass and to pick fights over nothing.

There's a reason kids under 21 aren't allowed to drink--it's because they aren't mature enough to do it responsibly. No self-respecting adult I have ever seen has run around drunkenly nut tapping his buddies, or shouting obscenities for no particular reason. No sir, it's just kids.

But not all kids, and certainly not this kid. Despite all the crap I get from people about refusing to drink, I'm sticking to my guns for a number of reasons. My age and the fact that I just don't like alcohol are two pretty solid reasons that I won't drink, but the biggest one is that I don't need it to have fun. I can hang out with my friends and laugh until my sides hurt without having a single drop of alcohol. Truly, it just isn't my thing.

So, is there anything inherently wrong with drinking alcohol? No, I guess not--tons of people do it every day without making fools of themselves. But there is something wrong with not being able to attend a damn party without getting wasted and out of control. But for some reason, the perception among college kids is that it's "cool."

Well, I'm here to tell you: it isn't.