As memes and opinions rage through social media, specifically Facebook, there is a common trend I've seen amongst college girls as of late: the notion that "romance is dead," or "staying in and reading a book is better than partying," and "here is my opinion on the election that I gathered from memes." If you have these types of thoughts, you are completely entitled to them and I even agree with you to some extent. The one problem I have with these articles being shared over and over again, specifically the second one I mentioned, is that they polarize people into very opposite categories, when, as we all know, nothing is black and white. Everything has gray areas.
Most recently, I saw an article about a girl in college who claims she has never gone through the "party phase" that rampages through many university students. And that's fine. Not everyone likes partying, some people don't see the appeal to drinking or using other means to deviate from being sober. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem I had with the article was that this person was demonizing the people who do enjoy partying (Spoiler alert: there is nothing wrong with that either). The article went on to say that girls who party every weekend are basically stupid and will never amount to anything in life because they aren't mature enough to stay in on a Saturday night curled up with a book. This makes absolutely no sense to me, and hopefully reading that struck you in the same way (This is like, Feminism 101). Girls who chose to stay in on Saturday nights are no better than girls who enjoy getting black out drunk, because guess what? Whether you like it or not: everyone is entitled to their own choices. Everyone is allowed to have fun in the ways they have fun. No one is better than anyone. Crazy, right?
The article also completely separated college girls into two different categories: the partier and the non-partier. If you enjoy going out every night and drinking, you are completely different from a girl who would rather stay in. Now, in some ways, technically this is true. But here's a concept: perhaps a girl can be more than one dimensional and actually enjoy doing both things? What a wild idea, that people are complicated and unique! I made a joke on Twitter after reading that article saying that I could be reading Leo Tolstoy and two hours later be getting turnt to a Lil Jon song because: you can do both. If you want. It's all up to you. But it's inappropriate and just plain wrong to categorize girls (or boys) into stereotypes just to prove your own way is 'the right way'. The author of this article was putting down girls who go out to show that her use of time is better. There isn't a need for that. There are ways to give your side of the story and your opinions without having to tear down someone different than you. I know that's a hard concept for many of us to grasp...but life is a learning experience.
The moral of the story is that this constant battle of introvert vs. extroverts, or perhaps more specifically, party girls vs. bookworms is stale and doesn't match up with the progressive ways our society is gradually learning to adapt to. It's actually becoming cool to accept people's differences and try to learn from one another. Ladies, if you would rather drink and hook up with random boys, that doesn't make you any less 'smart' or 'classy' as girls who don't. And ladies who would rather stay in and hang out with yourself, you are still as "fun" and "interesting" as the girls who enjoy a wild time. It's all in what you like. Own your choices, and let others own theirs!
