Top Party Schools: Why Party?

The Princeton Review has released its list of top party schools in the US. Each year, senior high school students across the nation pretend not to care in front of their parents, while secretly investigate the list to learn where they're likely to have the best time for those 4-6 keg-filled years of college. Of course WVU made the list, but just above them is good 'ole Ohio University. It's probably one of the only places Athens will ever kick Morgantown's butt in statistics of "the better school for..." but they can rejoice over the recognition and fame it affords them.

Perhaps it was the way I was raised, perhaps it was getting pregnant just before my 18th birthday and having to skip the formative young adult years, but I just cannot understand the desire to sit around with your buddies every weekend getting plastered off cheap beer and horrible wine, only to wake up the next morning not knowing where you are, who you slept with, and why your underwear is on outside of your jeans. Don't get me wrong, a drink now and then in good company is great fun, but I'd have to imagine that one or two hangovers would be enough to cure my desire to drink myself into a drunken stupor ever again. What is the appeal? What keeps these kids coming back for beer after beer, week after week?

My number one theory has to do with alcohol's ability to lower one's reservations and inhabitions. How better to break the ice in a city where you don't know anyone and have no close friends who know about that horrible haircut you had in 8th grade or the dog you lost just months before leaving home? Drink a few beers, laugh about whatever random topic of conversation comes up, maybe "hook up" for the night, and instantly you have new stories to tell, new inside jokes with your new friends. If nothing else, for the rest of your time at college you will be able to go up to that person and say, "Hey man! Remember that really wild night we had freshman year?" It's a connection, a bond, however flimsy and superficial, that makes you feel connected with the people around you. How else could you endure the next four years of tests and homework, essays and research papers, late night cram sessions and early morning exams?

As an adult I've learned that it's difficult to make friends in a conventional manner. Ask me about the friends I currently have in the state I moved to as an adult, and you'll learn that 80% of them are people I have met at work, while the other 20% are from school. Making friends is difficult for one main reason - forming that bond, finding that common ground or shared experience, can be more like finding a particular grain of sand on the beach when you realize that we're all too afraid to give to much of ourselves to anyone else. Many of us hide our successes and failures for fear of alienating ourselves, or seeming boastful, or weak, as the case may be. But we need to realize that we have to share these experiences in some way, in order to connect with others who have similar experiences. Does this mean that you just randomly blurt out to strangers - "I killed my pet hamster when I was 5!" or "My dad used to beat on me and call me worthless, and I'm still really angry about that! Anyone else?" Of course not! You'll find yourself the proud owner of a one-way ticket to the looney bin if you try that one.

That's what makes daily, routine run-ins with the same people so useful. The people at work might let slip something like, "I don't talk to my dad anymore," and POOF! you've made a connection! But you have to wait for these moments in civilized society. But with a few drinks to lighten the mood, you can let things fly without a care for the consequences. It won't always work, but most times you will make those connections because of your loose lips and blunt confessions. Is it any wonder that most "top party schools" also seem to have the tightest "pal" groups on campus? Years later they see a friend from college in a faraway place and just the hint of recognition and flash of memory of "those wild parties" leads them into a hug and back into a friendship that will last them as long as its needed.