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The Realities of the College Bar Scene

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UK chapter.

A college bar is a strange place. Young adults gather in a dirty, dimly lit building and begin to intoxicate themselves. The alcohol allows them to care less about everything and “have more fun”. Maybe they would like to celebrate passing an exam or maybe they would like to forget about failing an exam. Maybe it’s their best friends birthday and they are forcing shots on her while she’s wearing a tiara and a sash that says, “It’s my birthday b****!”

 

Possibly the alcohol gives the college kids the courage to approach the person they’d like to have sex with that night. The men seem to scope out the assortment of females like shoppers at a mall. The women have put on makeup, fixed their hair, and dressed in they’re most appealing clothes so they can look desirable to the men who are out shopping. A male spots a female with a plunging neckline. He decides to approach. He is wearing his nicest collared shirt and khakis. He says something to her and she looks him up and down, deciding if he is up to her standards. She turns away.

 

The bar is filled with an unnerving cocktail of hormones and sexual desire. The music is loud, making it nearly impossible to have a conversation unless you are speaking directly into someone’s ear and even then you’ll probably have to repeat yourself. The bathrooms are disgusting, occasionally flooded and usually out of toilet paper. I’ve walked into the bathroom and second-guessed my ability to read the word “women” because there was a man in there peeing. He looked up and asked it he was in the men’s bathroom and I said no. He apologized profusely and drunkenly walked out.

 

It’s damn near impossible to walk around inside the bar on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s so crowded and you have elbow your way around the place, bumping into a bunch of sweaty people. As a night a Two Keys progresses you’re likely to see someone throwing up, someone crying, and people making out as if they’re not in public.

 

Although Two Keys is a place for people to have fun on a Friday night, the place is also a little bit depressing. Future lawyers, therapists, economists, doctors, teachers, nurses, all gather at Two Keys to get drunk off of five dollar well drinks and then take an uber home at 2:30 a.m. when the bars close, only to wake up the next day feeling like s**t.

Kristi is a senior at the University of Kentucky, with a Journalism major and an English minor. She is from Pittsburgh, PA and enjoys reading, writing, hiking, and watching documentaries. She hopes to find a job where she can write and be creative after graduation.