I’ll never forget my thought process as a freshman in college. My friends and I thought that we had to attend every single fraternity party, every single weekend. To this day, I’ll never understand how we did that. I never particularly enjoyed my time at the parties because they are sweaty, filled with drunk people and typically get busted by the cops within three hours. Now that I’m older and realize that I don’t have to go a fraternity party every weekend to have fun, my entire perspective on even going to one frat party has completely changed.
I attended my last fraternity party a few weeks ago. The theme of this party was the 1980s, which made me immediately annoyed. It’s so exhausting to find an outfit that goes with a theme of a party, and I would much rather dress up in whatever I felt like wearing. As a freshman, I would sometimes actually buy things from the store to dress up as a part of the theme. Now that I look back on that, I get so frustrated with myself because I could’ve spent that money on literally anything else.
Once I arrived at the party, I couldn’t stand how crowded it was. It was so hard to get around people. Also, all I kept thinking about was how it was flu season and that I was in such a small space with a bunch of random people. That thought alone made me immediately want to leave. Not only that, but since parties typically force you to be stuck in a room with tons of people, it’s incredibly hot and sweaty. It grossed me out to think about how cold it was outside compared to how sweaty and gross I felt inside. I don’t even want to get into how gross fraternity parties can be in the summer.
Usually when I go to fraternity parties, the DJ plays the same trap songs every single weekend. Due to this, there’s a 99 percent chance that I do not know the song, yet continue to awkwardly dance to it. However, at the 1980s party that I attended, they did something different and played 1980s music. At first, I was pretty impressed. I have never been to a fraternity party that actually played music that went along with the theme. However, once I heard “I Want to Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston for the fourth time, I knew it was time to go home.
Overall, I don’t regret the times I spent at fraternity parties during my freshman year. In my opinion, I think every freshman should go through that phase. However, I cannot go through it ever again. I felt like the oldest person there, and all I wanted to do was go to McDonald’s and watch Netflix. However, I guess that’s a part of growing up. I’ll definitely go to some other fraternity functions again, but definitely not as often as I did as a freshman.