“Come on! You’re no fun”

Excuse me? I’m no fun because I don’t want to spend my weekend throwing up? I’m no fun because I want to remember what I did? Did you ever think that I might have a different idea of fun than you?

If you’re anything like me, you are sitting in your room on Friday and Saturday nights trying to hear Netflix over the noise coming from the closest frat house. You hear stories the next morning at brunch when everyone else looks like death and you’ve gotten 12 hours of sleep. Don’t get me wrong; there have been times when it was me who couldn’t remember what happened the night before or had to sleep on the floor because I was so sick.

I realized that what I was doing was because someone else wanted me to do it, and not because I actually enjoyed it.

The belief that college is supposed to be about partying is false. I’m sorry if this offends any of you frat boys out there, but I have bigger plans that what I’m going to wear to your party on Saturday night. College is about learning and going to class (yes, I'm sorry but that's what you're paying for), and having fun when it doesn't interfere with those things. I don't want to waste my tuition by ruining my GPA.

You’re not weird if you don’t want to party all of the time. There are plenty of us who want to have fun in other ways. It's frustrating that in our society today that movies, books, TV shows, and social media are telling us that partying is the normal thing to do, and not doing it means that we are missing out. Yeah, it might be the normal thing, but that doesn’t make it the right thing for me.

Not wanting to party does not take away from your college experience. Partying shouldn’t be the biggest part of our four years here. Some of us want to have different memories, and that’s okay. We should be able to make these decisions for ourselves without being judged. If you want to stay in every weekend, you have every right to do that. If you want to party every weekend, go ahead. Maybe finding that balance between having fun, going out, partying, and staying in is what you want to do, and that's perfectly okay too. Respect the decisions of others even if they are unlike your own.

So I beg you; Stop telling me I am no fun for not drinking three days a week. Stop pressuring me to party when you know I don't want to. Please stop asking me why I’m more interested in studying than partying (because honestly that’s a stupid question). Please stop telling me I am "missing out." But most importantly, stop judging me because I have a different idea of fun than you.