Ah yes, another "Thirsty Thursday" here at school. The smell of perfume consumes the room to the point of suffocation and I have never seen so many crop tops in one place. The tradition of blurry nights and bad decisions have become common on most college campuses these days. Yet here I am, on my best friend's bed as she puts on her makeup about to embark on said weekly journey to Frat Row. She carefully applies liquid eyeliner and "Urban Decay" eye shadow, as I carefully adjust her pillows and grab a blanket to assure that I will be nice and cozy the rest of the night.
As you can probably tell, I’m not one for parties. Sure, I’ve been to a couple, but I’ve always gotten bored within an hour and to my parents' and my RA’s dismay, would walk alone to the train station so that I could get back to campus at a human hour and crawl right into bed.
Not saying that I’m not one for going out at all. I just prefer doing what my friends have so generously begun to refer to as “sober activities,” or as I like to call them “normal human being activities” (including, but not limited to: Bowling, the movies, mini golf. You get the point). I would just much rather save my energy for the next time I’m out till 3 a.m. because I was at a concert and craving a milkshake afterwards so I stopped at a diner on my way home.
The problem these days is that everybody in college feels as if they need to go to a party and get blackout drunk every week in fear of being judged or missing out on “the college experience.” There is a lot more to do in college than drink. Take a spontaneous trip to a city near you, explore your college town, rent a movie, go to a play or check out your school’s calendar and go to the event that night!
I know where you’re coming from. What if you miss out on something exciting? FOMO is real and is something that could cause you to fall into peer pressure and end up, yet again, uncomfortable at a party that you do not want to be at. Find a group of people at college who will go along with your crazy ideas of going to the beach at two in the morning when you have class the next day. Go to an ice cream shop off campus.
My friends understand that I don’t want to go out with them all of the time just as I understand that they don’t always want to stay in with me. It’s all about balance and making sure that everybody around you is comfortable. Try asking your friends to do a movie night every other week so that you’re not always alone in your dorm while they’re out at a party. Make more friends who want to stay in with you on Thursdays and weekends. The possibilities are endless.
There is nothing wrong with not wanting to spend your college years in a blacked out haze caused by alcohol. I’ve been doing just fine without it.
