On The Session

We've all had those moments when, in the midst of a game of beer pong or as the rest of the party patrons sing along to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," a friend reveals to you that he's been deluded the past three years with awful friends, he's been snagging Zoloft from a dealer in Vanderslice 5, and he's only studying finance so his parents will buy him a new Kia Sorento when he graduates.

"Wow, I'm really sorry. Have you thought about getting help?" you say, sipping your solo cup, "But I hear the Sorento has a lot of giddy-up." You say something like that, some quasi-comforting and intimate thing that you can still get away with saying with 65 other bodies and Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" buzzing around you.

It's a behavior not limited to undergraduate life, but seems most prevalent in college campuses: people guzzling alcohol to reveal their darkest secrets in the wrong arenas.

Some students (namely freshmen) claim that you can distinguish undergraduate from high school social life on grounds of maturity, sophistication, compassion for fellow humans, earnestness. You can't. While we do discuss more pressing issues and begin to let certain things slide that we wouldn't in high school (i.e. you seldom see a girl-on-girl fight over which one deserves the heart of the tennis team captain in Corcoran Commons), the vast majority of college students gossip, bicker, avenge, belittle, castigate, worry, and smear as much as in high school. The only difference is that when we argue we use terms from logic class and when we gossip about someone we apply advanced psychological disorders to him or her. Add to that, students also face the pressure of having to actually produce after graduation, to earn an income, to create meals without the aid of a dining hall card.

For some reason, many students opt to vent these inner pressures in the middle of parties or at bars. After a game of flip cup, a girl reveals that she has been cheating on her boyfriend with her lab partner in organic chemistry. While milking a Budzilla at trivia night in Roggie's, a guy exposes that joining ten clubs ruined his entire college experience. As a pair of friends wait for someone to pour jungle juice, one tells the other that, while they've spent four years slaving in the Entrepreneurial Society, the real thing they wanted to do on this campus was join Swing Kids.

And these are just the most light-hearted examples. Abortions, revelations of sexuality, tales of abuse and addiction and deceit – these all emerge amid Ja Rule blaring through the sub woofer and bottles of strawberry Andre champagne. When you reveal your most personal stories, a bottle of Andre should not be in sight.

The problem isn't that students reveal these things while drunk. It's that they reveal these things to friends who are also drunk. Letting your past off your chest or revealing a mistake to roommates and friends can work better than therapy. Your friends know you, your experiences, your situation more than most people on this earth. But when you pour your drunken soul to other drunken souls, they're liable to grant drunken advice, advice that skews or taints how you feel about the situation, advice that may lead to a brash drunken decision.

Drunken debauchery can revive the spirit. Pee off the parking garage roof. Break your Mod furniture. Huck your late night mozzarella sticks at the BCPD, that'll show 'em what you really think of the law. But at all costs, avoid drunken soul searching. This campus has infinite outlets for you to express yourself, the worst of which is at a Mod party.