Why American College Life Is Way Better Than The UK (From a British Person)

Doctor Franzia9 years ago

I have a very close female friend from across the pond, and for this, the day celebrating our independence and the birth of the most kick-ass nation on Earth, I thought I’d get her take on how British college life compares to American campuses. Spoiler alert: there’s no comparison.

As far as common experiences go, for a British girl, dating a frat guy is pretty unusual.

Every teenage girl dreams of meeting that hot American. A toned and tanned foreign beauty with an accent to die for. We have rom-coms and trashy movies about some bloke wanking into an apple pie to thank for that.

But for me it actually happened. I met him. I dated him. Fell in love with him and here we are. It could be a movie! And it is, it’s the most magical thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve driven in a big red truck, partied on a house boat, and watched movies at the drive in. It’s the American Dream.

But there’s another side, one that I wasn’t familiar with until I lived it. He comes from a different world, a world of tequila shots taken from belly-buttons, wild parties in frat-house basements, extravagant costumes, pimped up limos and nights that quickly became mornings. (By the way, you can’t get 24hr pancakes or Panda Express anywhere in the UK, so that alone makes America an amazing place).

Sometimes I struggle with hearing the sordid details of his life before we met. Now don’t get me wrong, I partied hard in university too. I spent many a night in dark, dank night clubs drinking too much and dancing maybe a little more provocatively than needed. I hooked up and experienced my fair share of Walk of Shames (though I called them Strides of Pride).

But somehow it doesn’t quite match up. He boasts of how Americans hold their drink better than we do, how they party harder, longer and wilder.

He’s right. British university life pales in comparison, and when he came to visit, he drank my friends under the table. We reside in cramped communal halls with limited tolerance for parties. If you’re lucky, you’ll be placed in a flat with other like-minded partiers. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be with four foreign students who only leave their rooms for lectures and cook smelly food in the sink.

We Brits like to think we party but how can we compete with weekends on a houseboat drinking on a lake? With frat-houses that have a nightclub in the basement and a ‘penthouse’ on the roof? How can we beat real toga parties? Heaven and Hell? Or any other fraternity bash?

Honestly we can’t. We can walk out of university with our heads held high, but we won’t be remembered for wearing a horse mask, throwing toilets from the roof, or almost dying from drinking our own alcoholic creation and then waking up and doing it all over again.

And I don’t mind, because American college life made him who he is. It made him the guy I fell in love with, the guy who makes me laugh every day and the guy who will never be boring.

And for all the American men who have been reading this far, let me reward you by telling you what you really want to know:

In my experience, Americans have way bigger dicks than British guys do. No question. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Happy 4th everybody!.