Don’t Allow Your Squad To Get Soft Senior Year

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It was a crisp spring Saturday night where I was casually drinking an overpriced, frothy craft stout, playing ninth wheel at a table of nothing but longterm, committed relationships discussing brunch plans for the next day as some portly broad strummed away on an acoustic guitar belching about a lost lover in the background of a well-lit outdoor bar when it finally dawned on me: My friends had prematurely transitioned into postgrad life and it was taking a serious toll on my social well-being.

They say you can tell a lot about a guy just by looking at the group he runs with, and if that’s the case, I must have appeared about as edgy as a Bar Mitzvah DJ spinning the ones and twos at Eli’s big 1-3. Keeping it kosher, all the time.

If my friends were a bed, they’d be a Tempur-pedic. If they were a weapon, they’d be a single shot Nerf gun. If they were a cartoon, they’d be the Charmin toilet paper fetish bear snuggling a 48-pack of ultra soft. They’re fucking marshmallows roasting away over a gasoline ignited camp fire, and I was the crumpling graham cracker trying to hold it all together.

It wasn’t always like that.

Long forgotten were the drug and alcohol fueled nights cruising around town — squad deep — with a massive crew in oxford button downs and backwards snapbacks making the most of every minute, throwing down more wells than an 1800s frontier abortion clinic and hitting on any honey that walks through the door until last call. The strip club trips where my buddy’s fat face would be swallowed whole by a thick tatted up Latina dancer? Distant memories. Celebrating at the student clinic with my eskimo brother after the results come back negative from the mutual questionable hookup who relayed the message that she had caught the lifelong companionship of the herp? Never to be mentioned again. Pissing our letters on our rival fraternity’s doorstep? Still doable, but not a no-brainer with my friends like it once was.

For whatever reason — whether it be internships, actual jobs, or simple maturity — your social downfall starts midway through senior year and never truly recovers. Some of your boys are foolishly ready to move onto the real world, others are in too deep with their girl they just mistakenly lavaliered, and the remaining dipshits climb atop an ivory tower of morality, passing down judgement on anyone that still wants to slum it up at the local college watering hole with shameless hopes of bringing back freshman tail.

Suddenly your friends turn into unexcitable assholes who find drinking IPAs and going to Trivia Night more enjoyable than rolling their asses off at the club and publicly finger-blasting some chica to a Diplo set. They actually want to hold conversation rather than loudly yell over a deafening bass? About what? You mean I’ll have to develop some sort of personality now rather than talk fraternity tiers and politics while skating by on slightly above average looks. No. It can’t be. It’s as if the last three and a half years were one giant full moon and these party seeking, face-fucking, degenerate werewolves are now turning back into tranquil boners in pastel.

Nothing will drudge up a quarter life crisis quite like your boys “calling it a night” at 10 p.m. after happy hour for no reason other than “it’s getting late,” or they want to “get an early start to the morning.” These are not your friends. They’ve changed and you need to run as far away as humanly possible. Don’t accept this cruel twist of fate. Hold onto your destructive college party habits and never let go.

  1. StockWithFrock

    Fuck this is depressing. I never want to get too old to chug a half bottle of sour and fingerbang freshman in an 18+ “club.” I never want to get too old to drunkenly stumble to the front of the pizza line and end up in a pizza slapbox with the asshole who dared tell me that I skipped. I never want to get too old.

    9 years ago at 12:00 pm
    1. SuperSpy1897

      I’m with you. Nothing’s worse than reading an article saying, “Don’t do this!” when it’s already too late.

      9 years ago at 2:28 pm
  2. Caressmedown

    Freshman year: “we have four/five years to get our shit together. Who cares right now”

    Junior/Senior year: “fuck we have to graduate soon lets be as degenerate as possible until then”

    -most people I know, unlike your pussy whipped little dingleberry friends.

    9 years ago at 12:26 pm
    1. Dan Regester

      Junior year, yeah. But then people work 40+ hour internships and try to get their shit together so they’re not scrambling for employment come graduation. You seem to have it all figured out, though. Congrats on the sex and partying, player.

      9 years ago at 12:37 pm
      1. Caressmedown

        I interned each summer of college, interviewed this year, got the job from the internship and start August 1st… I certainly won’t be “scrambling”. We all act like degenerates now because we know what’s coming when we graduate. Like me, trading commodity futures contracts all day long.

        9 years ago at 4:04 pm
      2. Oral Hershiser

        Actually, as a trader, your life won’t change all that much. You’re still going to drink your face off, and blow lines like it’s going out of style, because that’s the only way to make it through the day in that position. (Disclaimer: I’m not a trader. But I know a guy who is. Well, I can imagine what it would be like if I did.)

        9 years ago at 5:21 pm
      3. Caressmedown

        Except I’ll have a…. job, which is usually different than just going to class. Futures market is a bit different, it’s rarely done at an individual level and you don’t buy anything or own anything. I’ll just be speculating about the direction of prices of agricultural commodities we are interested in. Hoping that the contract I buy doesn’t lose the company any money upon delivery because prices lowered in that time period and I predicted it wrong. The company I’ll work for is a commodity consumer, obviously. It’s less stressful. If the prices move in the right direction the company is happy with me and if I come out positive in a year I get 10% of what I made the company. So if individually I made them a million dollars I get a bonus of $100,000 on top of my salary. So ill be behind a computer watching trends a lot and buying and selling contracts. It’s no Wall Street.

        9 years ago at 10:52 pm
      4. DannyRayburn1898

        Lap this all you want, but my only intention is to find out if this mouth breather is in my class. 486, Smith? Guys a legend, but he gives pond scum like you hope, because he’s too nice. You’re gonna be a purchaser for target, making sure their patio furniture inventory meets demand. Keep going through your day with false hope

        9 years ago at 12:41 am
      5. Caressmedown

        Not sure what I’m doing explaining myself on a TFM comment section where I made a light-hearted joke. But I’ll say it one more time since you aren’t understanding, bud. It’s called the futures market which trades contracts, which are intangible. But yeah a buyer for target picking out patio furniture makes sense here….. which would be a tangible good and would have nothing to do with trading through any type of trade organization. “lap me all you want” is such a pussy out too, have some confidence.

        9 years ago at 1:16 am
      6. Oral Hershiser

        I humbly stand corrected (even though my comment was also a light-hearted joke, I do feel a little bad about the internet points you’ve lost here), and am actually very appreciative of the explanation;I’ve heard the term “futures trader” plenty of times before and (obviously) had no idea what it meant.

        9 years ago at 11:42 am
  3. Wasted Wednesday

    “In too deep with their girl they just mistakenly lavaliered.” Every one of my brothers that has lavaliered a girl ended up breaking up with them within a couple months.

    9 years ago at 12:40 pm
  4. Keep It Buttery

    Good stuff, Dan. Your idiomatic expressions are always spot on.

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    So, now, who wants to do the honors? Begin replying with your favorite way of saying “penis”, like “dick” or “cock”. I appreciate your time.

    -Keep It Buttery

    9 years ago at 12:40 pm
  5. JackDanielsrunning

    Last semester senior year is the most depressing and apathetic experience in my life to date.

    9 years ago at 12:44 pm
      1. JackDanielsrunning

        I don’t know man. What’s worse watching your youth slowly slip away or everyday after its gone? Getting diagnosed with HIV or living with AIDS? It seems like the soul crushing disappointment factor really levels off as the general level of misery rises.

        9 years ago at 2:19 am
      2. Presidente

        Funny, but it really doesnt. You’re an idiot if you think you cant party after college and get girls. Its just a different scene…and you have real money to burn

        9 years ago at 9:44 am
      3. JackDanielsrunning

        Sure you can keep partying, getting girls, and you will have more money but you also have far more real responsibilities to take care of meaning if you want to maintain your college lifestyle you have way more on the line when you make a mistake. College is really the last place where the mistakes you make don’t really cost you much.

        9 years ago at 2:19 pm
  6. Grenade_Diving_Wingman

    I never want to get so old that I can’t get plastered on a tuesday afternnon

    9 years ago at 2:53 pm
  7. Oral Hershiser

    “throwing down more wells than an 1800s frontier abortion clinic”
    Bravo, motherfucker, bravo.

    9 years ago at 5:23 pm