|
20-year-olds are stuck in a social limbo
 Kristen J. Kubisiak
|
|
I thought after puberty I had gotten through some of the most awkward years of my life, but it turns out that nothing compares to the year following my 20th birthday. I was, for the past eight and a half months, and AM, for the next three and a half months, in a type of social limbo where I dangle between house parties with a bunch of freshmen and getting into a bar worth going to.
While my peers and friends are filing into the numerous bars and clubs in the nooks and crannies of downtown St. Cloud any night of the week, my options are limited to the meat market formerly known as First Street Station on the biweekly 18 plus nights, or the slew of ongoing campus activities. (Did you know UPB had the 1996 blockbuster thriller "The Rock" at Atwood this weekend?) As interesting and culturally enriching as campus activities can be, let's be honest, that rootbeer kegger gets old fast.
So what is there to do for us awkwardly-aged 20-year-olds in this town? Well, there are house parties, this is true, but let's talk about house parties for a moment, shall we? The majority of people who end up at house parties, EVEN if "legal adults" throw them, are people who can't drink legally elsewhere. What does this mean for those of us who are more interested in the social aspect of partying? When the cops come, and they do come, if we don't high tail it out of there, we are guilty by association even if we were not drinking.
Then there are the "teeny bopper" nights at the "clubs" like First Street (now Rum Runners). Oh, what atmosphere those places have! The seedy older gentlemen waiting to pick up our cute, fresh-faced, scantily-clad freshman girls with their IDs tucked away � God knows where, there are no pockets in that halter or those painted on leather pants. Watching girls, with faces as innocent as my little sister's, dance with "men" who are grinding all too happily against their posteriors.
Oh, joy. I can't believe I ever went to that place as a freshman, nor can I believe how fun I thought it was! This beings me to another point.
There is a BIG difference between 18 and 20. Sure, to the untrained eye it may only be two years, but this is what it really is: three years of college versus one year. Just moving into the dorms versus just leaving. Just getting into college versus just about out of college. Never been away from home versus never going back. Nothing personal to my freshman counterparts, hey, I was one once too, but there is a great deal of difference between the two ages and lifestyles in general that often make interaction a bit awkward.
Just when it was looking like there might be hope of even accidentally running into people on their way to the bars, or good friends stumbling out of the bars on a starry spring night, bang. The sky opens up and spews forth another batch of nasty white powder, as if to say, you can't even inline skate with your friends who are legal during the daytime!
What I want is not to have the drinking age lowered, I mean come on, if it was alcohol I wanted, I could find a way to get it. What I want is to be able to go out with my peers! What I want is to be able to meet and socialize with people whom I share a common lifestyle, a common interest and a common place in life, not play mommy to people who are only just beginning to discover college, or cleaning up vomit from a night of excess that is a trademark of the freshman experience. At times it's amusing to watch them pursue love interests, shriek over "Dawson's Creek" and haul their belongings off to mommy and daddy's every weekend. And they can be sweet in their often-alarming enthusiasm for campus activities such as Hall Council. They are not the people 20-year-old juniors like myself best relate to.
I am thinking of starting a support group for students like myself. It will be called "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" after Britney's latest song. If you didn't know that, it's because you are probably getting into the bars and not stuck in places where these sorts of conversations can be picked up.
In the meantime�I will be counting down. Three months, two weeks, and five days until I see you all at the Red Carpet.
Kristen J. Kubisiak can be reached at: [email protected]
|
|
|
|
|
|
