Now, don’t get me wrong, having some drinks and getting together with your friends is always a fun time. I’ve had a lot of memorable weekends with my friends drinking, but I’ve also had a lot of memorable weekends with them stone cold sober. I’ve enjoyed more days with hikes, adventures and jam sessions over the nights we were crowded in a house party, unable to hear each other or move. I always wonder how people do it every weekend. How people stand nights erased by the time they hit one too many shots? I’ve grown tired of it.
So many incoming college students expect these nights to be the time of their lives. I’ve gone this route, realized nights of my life I was missing out on, and I’ve grown weary of it by my sophomore year. I’m tired of feeling the damage I do to my body on a Monday. I’ve grown tired of piecing together my night, spending money on alcohol that only takes me out of my true self and erased nights I thought I would remember forever with my friends.
I’m tired of the party scene.
I’m tired of party music. I hate party music. Have you ever truly tuned into lyrics of some new Wiz song that’s probably playing in a frat, or a new radio hit? It’s trash—and people party along to these songs because the beats are good. I can’t do it. I want to drive with my friends on back roads and listen to Kendrick Lamar tell me a story throughout his album, and have dance parties to J.Cole in my dorm with my best friend. I’d rather play some Cards Again Humanity with my friends instead of trying a drinking game at a party where at least three people will forget they’re even playing.
I’m tired of being surrounded by drunk idiots.
Seriously. Being a college girl at a party sets you up for at least two a** grabs throughout the nights, guaranteed. And I bet you won’t see at least one of their faces. Some guys seem to think this is casual? What if I went up to you at a party and copped a feel? You wouldn’t be so chipper about it, either. I’ve been told I was “too confident” by a guy literally slurring at me from being so drunk, all because I told him not to touch me. Not to touch me after he had already gotten a feel. Oh, or the time I got told that I was apparently a “bitch” and was “gonna get knocked out,” all because I asked a man I didn’t know to quit touching me, after he had literally hung on me. Now, besides all the negatives I’ve said about guys at these parties, I can’t say that every single person there are a**holes. They’re not, and in fact, a group of peers I had known from a previous class stood up for me and threw the guy out. Not everyone who goes out is a bad person, but I’ve had too many experiences with the bad ones to enjoy it anymore.
Everyone has an escape, but mine just isn’t the party scene.
Like I said, people who go out aren’t bad people, and people who stay in aren’t necessarily good people. Though I’ve been highlighting the a**holes of nights out, I still have good friends that just enjoy alcohol more than me. That’s fine, because everyone has a way to escape the strains of life. Recently however, I’ve found more escape from life in connecting and learning with others more than escaping life by drinking a night away. I want to escape the strains of life in a way that shows me the good things in the world, like my amazing friends with intelligent minds and adventurous souls. I want to appreciate the wonderful aspects of our world and nature, relieving my stress on the ugly parts of the world. While people keep finishing bottles on the weekends, I’ll be up with my friends stargazing somewhere.
