nobody really cares if you don’t go to the party
I’ve been a homebody for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to cling to my mom’s shirt, tears streaming down my face, every time she brought me to my nana and opa’s house for the weekend. I was that girl that always had her parents pick her up at sleepovers at 2AM because she was “homesick”. I slept on my parent’s floor, then my brothers floor for years; I didn’t sleep in my own bed until late elementary school. Yikes!
I’ve craved and prioritized my own comfort and security most of my life. I stubbornly refused to go or stay anywhere I didn’t want to be, and I had no problem with it. I was a “my way or the highway” kind of gal, which of course felt great for me, but not so much for the people around me (for like the millionth time on this blog, sorry mom).
When I started college, this became an issue. Sharing a small room with one other person makes you realize how much you don’t go out compared to other people. It would be 10PM and my roommate would be sitting at her desk, doing her makeup for a party, and I’d be laying in bed queueing up the next episode of Criminal Minds. It wasn’t until the middle of my first semester that I was scrolling through Snapchat and Instagram and saw all of my friends out at a party that they had invited me to (that I of course had passed up for a wild night of ramen and a space documentary) , and this unsettling thought fell onto me as I watched them laughing and spilling their drinks on each other:
“I should have gone.”
And that was the beginning of my spiral into the FOMO slump. I said yes to almost every invitation I got to go out after that. Heck, there were times when I invited myself because there was no way I was spending another night in the dorm alone. I went to frat party after frat party, talked to every Chad and Kyle in San Marcos, and met so many temporary soulmates in the girl’s restroom. This went on for months. It was like a routine: nap in the afternoon, wake up, do makeup, wear something my mom would disapprove up, uber to party, drink punch, listen to some mediocre drunk guy in a jersey ramble on about his business accounting class and how Trump was definitely going to win the election, take uber to fuego or whataburger, fake soberness at fuego or whataburger, and then fall into bed still wearing my makeup around 3AM. It was fun, or so I told myself it was.
Sure, they made for funny (and humiliating) stories and (sometimes) good memories, but the next day I always woke up feeling the same way: shitty + hungover. The first night I went out, I drank way too much, and I ended up sitting on the floor in my dorm crying the next day because of how lonely I felt and how much I just wanted to go home. It seemed like every morning I had this thought that lingered over me and wouldn’t go away: this isn’t me. I’m not having fun.
I was exhausted.
Here’s what I’m not trying to say: parties are lame and I’m way too cool for everyone there, and only lame people with no lives go to them.
Here’s what I am saying: I hate being in a crowded living room that belongs to someone I don’t know, surrounded by people that don’t know me, and with music that’s so loud, you have to scream in the ear of the person standing three inches away from you.
The last time I went to a frat party was (coincidentally) the first time I DDed for one. Ha. I remember holding my empty cup, standing on the patio with my brows furrowed together, trying to understand the physics of two people making out that were so sloshed that they were using their faces to keep each other standing up (imagine a human triangle). I looked around and saw people stumbling around in beer soaked t-shirts, people dancing with absolutely no room for jesus, a girl crying in a porta potty with the door open, and some guy projectile vomiting by his car. I was suddenly so disgusted with myself and the environment I was in. I felt embarrassed to be there. But, most of all, I had this overwhelming realization:
“I should have stayed home.”
I came across this picture sometime that year, and I still think about it. It was a quote by Courtney Barnett and said:
It was such a simple and obvious statement, but so incredibly reassuring. Nobody cares? if I? don’t go? I was mindblown. I started learning how to say no for myself, when I wanted to. Of course I got grief from my friends (and still do) when I would turn them down to go read in the bathtub, but we were still friends! No one hated me because I decided to stay home. The world miraculously didn’t come to an end when the party of the season came around and I slept through it. My friends would come home and exchange stories about who madeout with who and laugh at the inside jokes I missed out on, and of course sometimes I would feel that familiar pang of FOMO. Then, I’d gently remind myself that I was simply just not in the mood to go out that night, and if I had, I would have either ended up having a great time or I would have been a miserable buzzkill, constantly checking my phone to see if it was late enough to leave. That’s just social russian roulette for you. You gotta learn to live without knowing.
On the other hand, when I went out, I had so. much. fun. Ya’ll! I have had the best nights of my life because I was there, and I wanted to be there. Going out stopped feeling like a social obligation. It felt like a break. A chance to let loose and dance with my friends, screaming the lyrics I knew too well for a song I “didn’t like”. I appreciated those nights we stayed out too late, driving with the windows rolled down, and serenading each other in the gas station parking lot. I stopped having so many mornings where I’d lay in bed, the record in my head continuously turning over to, “I should have stayed home. I should have stayed home. I should have stayed home.”
Of course, I’ve passed up a LOT of chances to go out in the past few years. That’s okay. I’ve read more books, taken more time for myself, wrote more, and had many more solo concerts in my bedroom, singing Miley Cyrus songs into my hairbrush with the kind of passion you’d expect at a sold out show. I guess that’s just called balance. It takes time, it’s not easy, but it does you so much good in the long run.
So go out. Stay in. Have fun! Listen to your mind and your body. Heck, listen to that little voice inside your head that’s saying, “I’m just not feeling it.” Do what you wanna do, but don’t let the FOMO bully you. And just remember:
Nobody really cares if you don’t go to the party.
