Living in a college town, or just going to college in general, you are going to gain a lot of freedom to be as social as you want. You could literally skip every single one of your classes to sleep because you were downtown all night with your friends. The scary part? No one is going to stop you. No one has the power to physically make you go to class like your parents did when you were living at home. That is all up to you.
The other part about college is that Friday nights are almost like sacred nights. Nothing will ever be done on these nights besides party and drink and go downtown. And if you try to stay in that night? You will get so many questions and get asked 100 times to “please just go out with us”.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: It is 110% ok to stay in on a Friday night. It is 110% ok to not want to go downtown and drink and risk getting a drinking ticket. It is 110% ok to not want to spend hours getting dolled up just to sweat it all off in a dark club. It is 110% ok to want to stay in by yourself and have a “you-night”. You know what else is ok? Wanting to hang out with your friends and do something fun that does not include drinking. That is a perfectly reasonable request.
You are the person who knows best how to take care of yourself. No one can tell you differently. If you know that going downtown makes you anxious, or that you are exhausted from the week and just want to lay in bed and binge some shows on Netflix, then you do exactly that. Some people’s way of relaxing is going out with a bunch of friends, some people’s way of relaxing is staying in their room by themselves. We, as college students, need to be more accepting of this fact if you ask me. I know we are one of the most accepting generations to exist (yay millennials!!) and I am thankful for that every single day, but we still have so much work to do. Please, if you are the extrovert/let’s-go-out type, don’t get mad if you friend says no to plans for a night in alone. If you love to drink that’s absolutely ok, but please remember that some people don’t and still deserve respect for that. Everyone defines having a fun night in different ways, and each and every single person’s definition of a fun night is a valid one.
In general, love the people around you and accept them for who they are please and thanks <333