When I struggle at school, it’s helpful for me to imagine I’m at the places that bring me the most joy: sitting around a campfire with half a dozen close friends, or visiting my grandma once a week to watch a movie. Perhaps it’s eating dinner every night with my parents or playing golf with my brothers. While I’m at home engaging with my loved ones, I have never wanted to be away at school, spending the night with music blasting as strangers shuffle around me.
Amid the hustle, nothing is more important than establishing a group of friends on which to anchor your student life. Eager to make connections, many turn to a variety of social settings to make long lasting friendships — partying isn’t the best way of doing this. In a social scene dominated by parties, college students should slow down and spend time in places where they can make truly meaningful connections.
What college parties do best is cultivate the “Isolation Partying Paradox.” That is, loneliness is perpetuated more in settings of large, loud gatherings than it is actually being by oneself. Partying elicits this paradox and underscores its effects when it involves alcohol as a remedy to intense anxiety over feelings of isolation. Unfortunately, because alcohol is often linked to memories of social connectivity, it becomes the way in which people seek out the positivity they may remember, regardless of whether or not other people are there. That is to say: alcohol numbs the social pain caused by parties…