I want to first preface this with something: I go out on the weekends explicitly to dance. And not to dance with randos, whose hands may roam where they have no right to be as they pass by, but to dance with friends. If you are not a friend and you are touching me, even accidentally, I will most likely glare and stop dancing until you move on. Because that, my friends, is not why I go out.

I don’t go out to get drunk, wasted, or obliterated. I don’t go out to feel validated, anxiously waiting for someone to tell me that I look beautiful, and I certainly don’t go out to find someone to hook up with. And I’m not demeaning anyone who does go out for these reasons (though going out for the sole purpose of blacking out is a phenomenon I will never understand and/or endorse for many reasons, including, um, general health concerns… hello?). I’m just saying… for those of you who don’t go out for these reasons, I hear you. I feel you. I AM you.

Because I’m not saying that I don’t go out, or that I don’t enjoy it sometimes. I’m just saying that I am fully aware that there is far more to life than these nights out, and that some nights out will be great fun and others will be so absolutely terrible that you’ll never want to leave the comfort of your bed at 11 p.m. again.

I’m here to tell you that it’s normal not to feel like these are the greatest days of your life. Or to feel like there’s far more creative ways to enjoy a night on the town than just the standard tight dress/high heels/straight hair combo that make it impossible to distinguish one pretty girl from any other (and make you feel like sh!t for wearing anything different).

There’s nothing wrong with you – you’re not extraordinarily boring or lackluster, you’re not a total loser who’s incapable of having fun when everyone else is, you’re just not made for this kind of life. College is great, and having the weekends to hang out with friends without worrying about that 8 a.m. the next day is a truly beautiful thing, but sometimes college students equate “going out” with “having fun” when that’s not necessarily the case for everyone. Different people have different interests, different schedules, different perspectives, and it’s hard when you’re all smushed together into one college night scene and expected to enjoy it just as much as the next person (or forfeit it all together, which also doesn't suit us all).

I respect those who don’t ever go out at all and enjoy doing so, because they know what makes them happy and they stick to it no matter what. But it sometimes feels harder for those of us caught in between – those of us who don’t mind going out, but can’t overdo it. Those of us who do feel FOMO when we stay in, but know that we would have even less fun if we went out. Those of us who are more than willing to go out when the music’s good, but less willing when the dance floor is chock full of people whose only dance experience is “grinding” at high school dances. Those of us who appreciate a nice pint with friends, and not a ridiculous line to get in that’s 50 people long and growing by the minute as more and more people find their “friends” and cut the line only to pretend to have fun for 75% of the night.

Whatever you do, in the end the most important thing to remember is that you should always be doing something that makes you happy. Not your parents, not your friends, not your boyfriend or girlfriend. The point of having no school on the weekends is to catch up from the stress of the week and to spend your time how you wish to spend it, so stop doing anything less.