“Don’t date the life of the party, date the guy who makes sure the life of the party gets home.”
Twitter user @astoldbyclaudia shared this valuable dating advice from her mom on October 28, and every college girl (and guy) needs to listen up. When you’re in college, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the fun and freedom you find there; don’t lose sight of yourself and what you’re looking for in a relationship.
The “life of the party” is the stereotypical college guy your parents warned you about as they prepared you to live on your own. He drinks more than he should, falls in ‘love’ with every girl he sees, and should come with a warning sign and flashing lights. Instead, he comes with charm, a smile you probably found endearing, and a history of past relationships and drunken escapades so long it makes your head spin. He’s stumbling around by midnight (on a good weekend), remembers your name (or something close to it) most of the time, and never fails to offer you a drink. Really, what more could a girl ask for?
Well, if we’re being honest, you should be asking for A LOT more. You deserve someone you can always count on to protect you, someone who calls you by your name and “love” in the same sentence, and someone who never fails to be there when you need help. You deserve dates and dinner and flowers and every other cliché. Face it, the “life of the party” is only thinking about the alcohol, a good time, and his reputation; a guy who’s worth your time makes YOU his priority, everything else be damned.
Dating the “life of the party” means signing up for endless weekends spent by a toilet, holding their head and a bottle of water. It means always worrying if they really care about you because they’ve been pretty close to (insert anyone’s name here) all night. It means endless parties, getting a lot better at beer pong than you ever anticipated, and learning how to tell the difference between alcohol poisoning and someone who had a little too much fun. It means learning to walk with someone who weighs 50 pounds more than you leaning on your shoulder, holding a trash can by a bed for hours, and listening to drunken words that definitely don’t correlate with sober thoughts. Girls, don’t date the “life of the party”, because they don’t care that they’re destroying you as they destroy themselves.
Date the guy who makes sure the life of the party gets home safe. Date the one who’s bringing you the bottles of water while you sit in the bathroom, the one who cares if you’re handing the situation okay, the one who helps you put the “life of the party” to bed when he can’t walk on his own. Look for the genuinely good guys, not the guys who are looking for a good time. Yes, college is a time for freedom and fun, but it’s also time to grow up. Challenge yourself to find relationships that have serious potential, not ones that are established on a temporary good time.