Teen movies make it seem like slumber parties are what all of the cool girls are doing. I grew up expecting that by the time I was 15, I would routinely host seven or eight of my closest, most beautiful friends to stay up all night having the absolute time of our lives. For girls, sleepovers represent being the epitome of "cool." To boys, girls' sleepovers represent some weird sexual fantasies involving lingerie and feather pillows.
To clear up some confusion, here is a definitive breakdown of the stereotypes surrounding slumber parties.
Stereotype: Pillow Fights
The most fun game of all time! We get to team up and whack each other with pillows until they all break and the whole room is covered with feathers!
Reality
The only pillow fighting you can expect to see is when someone hogs all of the pillows so nobody else can sleep. First off, pillows hurt. There is nothing fun, or nice, or cute about getting pummeled in the gut and face and back at the same time by (probably not feather) pillows. Feather pillows are expensive; we are not about to go destroying them to prove that we are cool and social. Also, if we destroy all of the pillows, where are we supposed to sleep?
Stereotype: Makeovers
Let's all do each other's hair and makeup! We can listen to really cool music like Lizzie McGuire does while she is getting ready for graduation and dance around and wear our mom's lipstick and best jewelry! There's no way she will be mad! We need to make sure we have a feather boa for everyone to wear and that everyone gets a professional-grade mani-pedi.
Reality
This has never happened at any sleepover, ever, probably.
Stereotype: Frilly Pink Pajamas
Everyone is required to wear matching pajamas that barely cover our butts or boobs, and are 100 percent not comfortable to sleep in, but at least we look super sexy! We have to look perfect in case the cute boys from homeroom come and peek into our windows, or AIM us and ask us to hang out!
Reality
You sleep in whatever giant t-shirt and boxer/pajama pants combo was most readily available. More often than not, what you sleep in is something that you showed up wearing or that is your friend's least favorite article of clothing that they are definitely willing to lose. Almost never is sleepover attire sexy, or pretty, or flirty.
Boys seem to love the idea of girls sleeping in the same bed together, looking sexy and gossiping until the late hours of the night. Girls think that they aren't popular if they don't get regularly assaulted by their friends bearing surprisingly not soft balls of fluff. In reality, we crash in each others' beds, steal the blankets, and talk about nothing until the other person stops responding. The night mostly consists of shoving as much pizza into our mouths as we can and then just sitting and saying, "what should we do?"
Ladies, you probably will never have a big slumber party like in the movies, and if you do, the rest of the girls in the world will be horribly jealous. Boys, keep dreaming. The real question is, what do boys do?
