If you know anything about college, you know that it’s a huge cauldron full of different personalities and a whole lot of reasons to party, whether that be a holiday, a good grade or just because you’re feeling a little wild.
1. The Wholesome Hangout
Maybe it’s a Friendsgiving, or maybe it’s just a bunch of girls coming together to do facemasks and watch Sex and the City, but these parties are laid-back and chill. Being surrounded by people you love instead of strangers can be one of the best parts about hanging with your friends—there’s no pressure to look good or get crazy. These parties don’t typically get messy because the goal isn’t to party, it’s to bond with those you love.
2. The Existential Event
Similar to the Wholesome Hangout, this event is usually populated with people you know and who know you. The Existential Event arises usually during midterms or before a particularly frustrating deadline when you seriously consider dropping out of college, moving to Colorado and becoming an alpaca farmer. You just need a little break to refresh and revitalize, and you’ll do that paper in the morning! Tonight is all about begging God to let you forget you exist for like three hours just to enjoy the sweet bliss of pretending you don’t have responsibilities looming over you at every turn.
3. The Frat Festivity
Everyone knows this one. It’s the smell of Busch Light on your clothes from where someone spilled it on you. It’s the lack of any good alcohol. It’s getting way too dressed up while the men roam around in dirty shorts. It’s the one frat guy who invited you to the party telling you not to drink the communal punch. It’s the really long lines to get into the bathroom because something shady is going down. It’s not being able to hear anything that’s being said and just nodding and laughing whenever someone talks to you. It’s grinding on a stranger and leaving with that stranger or realizing that the paper you swore you would do the next day in the midst of your Existential Event is actually due at midnight. But most of all, it’s an essential college experience and something everyone should experience once.
4. I Don’t Know Anyone Here Except for The Friend I Dragged Along With Me
You get a snapchat from that one boy you made out with at a Frat Festivity with an address and a time, so you beg your best girlfriend to go with you. When you get to the party, you find out that that guy didn’t even show up, and now you’re at a party full of people who all know each other but who don’t know you. Maybe they’re all in a club and this is their way of bonding, or maybe they’re all just too drunk not to make new friends, but either way, you feel like you’re intruding. But hey, you’re already here, so might as well try to enjoy it.
5. The Big Blowout
You’ve been planning this for months. It’s your 21st birthday, or Halloween, or the end of finals, but it’s all been leading up to this. You’ve decorated your apartment, you’ve chilled the Jell-O shots and you’ve dressed in the outfit you bought months ago but have been saving for this special occasion. You’re a little worried that you’ll be too busy hosting to have fun, but those worries are abated as soon as you open the door to the excited whoops and hollers of your friends. Sure, the clean-up tomorrow is going to be awful, and someone definitely threw up on your bathmat, but tonight is all about living and celebrating life and the people you share it with.