This is my response to "From The Girl Who Skipped The Party Stage". Well, let me start off with good for you, whether you party in college or you don't, that does not make you better than anyone else. Now I don't think skipping the party stage will make you have a mid-life crisis, later on, I agree with you but then our similarities end there. I'm not sure if you've ever actually tried going out but my guess is you haven't enough to understand it. You say "hooking up with strangers and being belligerently drunk every weekend" as if people who party are monsters and that were all the same.
There are so many different levels of going out, everyone goes out in hopes of something different. The biggest issue here is that not everybody drinks to get drunk. Sometimes you don't drink at all, or you drink for a light buzz and yes sometimes you're drunk. Whether it's on purpose or not. Some people go out in hopes of hooking up but I think the majority of us enjoy ending the long work week with our friends and dancing the night away. Sometimes you get all dressed up and go to the frat house or sometimes you just wear yoga pants and casually drink with your best friends. You act like every one of our nights ends in us drunk with somebody else in bed and not being able to remember anything. I can assure you that happens less than 1 percent of the time.
Believe it or not but some of the best memories I have are from drunken nights that I clearly remember. You act like one look at alcohol and you'll instantly forget everything you've ever known and you'll wake up with a pounding headache. This is not the case. I find it incredibly insulting that you assume that we cannot have a good time sober. We are not alcoholics, the majority of my happy memories come from all the sober nights I've had watching "Grey's Anatomy", dancing and eating too much food just like you.
What's more insulting is that you say your "priorities lay in a different place", are you insinuating that people who party don't know how to handle their responsibilities? I have been in the "party stage" for 2 semesters now and I have been on the Dean's List through it all. I'm not the only one, many of my friends are very intelligent and they drink on the weekend. You can still be very successful and have fun. We also are very capable of having an "actual discussion" at dinner and I bet I love a road trip just as much as you.
Stop shaming college girls for going out. Stop shaming us for drinking. Stop shaming us for having fun. Stop shaming us for being single. Stop shaming us for wearing tight clothes.
If you go out and party, great! Have fun, be safe. If you choose to stay in, great! Have a blast but don't shame everyone else who finds fun in going out.
I can't wait to look back on my college days and cringe at the shenanigans my friends and I got into on the weekends.
Sorry, I am really not sorry for not skipping the party.