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I love grandmas.  Most of the time they are cute, harmless, and give you cards on your birthday with a five-dollar bill stuffed inside (which is promptly spent at Happy Hour).  They cook you meatballs, pass down ugly sweaters (that earn you the best-dressed title at the annual Ugly Sweater Party), and say the nicest things when you are convinced life is in WWIII with you.  So, yes, it has been fairly established that Grandmas are the bomb.com.  But as wonderful as they are and as much as you just wanna pinch their wrinkley little cheeks every time you see them, there is a time and a place for grandmas.

And that is not standing over my bed in the morning, after a night of doing Jell-O shots.

Let me explain: Read More »

So it’s been a week since I put down the bottle of Jack. And Ketel. And Captain’s. And… well, everything.

At first, it was easy. After chugging rum out of a flask last Friday night and inhaling two giant slices of pizza after a few too many margaritas on Saturday night, I was more than excited to stay away from the hooch for a little while. I walked around my apartment in a hungover haze on Sunday, unable to do much besides watch a Millionaire Matchmaker marathon on my couch all day.

“Remember this feeling when you wanna go out and party,” I told myself as I made yet another cup of instant coffee.

Since I normally don’t drink much on weeknights (after that time I had to give a presentation in class and I was still drunk from the night before), it was smooth sailing for most of the week. Even the daily IMs from my guy friends asking me if I was still sober (OK, betting me that I wasn’t still sober) didn’t bother me. After all, being sober on a Monday wasn’t anything new to me.

But then Thursday hit and I felt like a Pavlovian dog, salivating for booze. It didn’t help that I was listening to my iTunes and every single song that came up reminded me of a bar. First Ke$ha, then Journey and then, to dig the knife in a little deeper, Madonna’s Like a Prayer (only my favorite drinking song of all time). I cursed Steve Jobs. Read More »

It took until the middle of my junior year of college, but I finally went to my first frat party. Well, a fraternity’s semi-formal, anyway.

It’s not that I haven’t been invited to these parties before. I nearly went to one during the first few weeks of freshman year, but decided last minute not to go when I realized that my denim mini skirt was about three inches longer than anything the other girls were wearing, and that, considering drinking really wasn’t my thing, I probably wouldn’t be comfortable.

Yeah, I know. I’m from a city that has more bars than traffic lights and go to a school that was ranked number one on Playboy’s list of top party schools, yet I don’t drink. Or party – in the traditional sense, anyway.

I’m not opposed to drinking,  I just never really saw the point and never liked the taste. Apparently, that’s not the point either, but I digress. I’ve been around friends drinking and had just as much fun without the liquor as they seem to be having with it. Hell, sometimes I even end up acting a bit crazier than they do. Like last year’s end-of-the-semester/good-bye party for a friend of mine who was studying abroad in the spring, where I had cranberry juice instead of sharing the wine and vodka. By the end of the night, I’d joined in the crazy dancing, given my friend (who’s gay) a lap dance, and was cuddling with said friend on his roommate’s bed. I also go out dancing most weekends and after about three hours of shaking my bon bon, the only drink I want is a tall glass of water.

But, like I said, I’m not opposed to it; I’ve tried it a few times, usually with the same results. It often just tastes like really bad medicine to me and I can’t see why I should choose that over my favorite fruit juice or water. I can have just as much fun as anyone else without the booze, and, as I like to remind them all later on, I remember everything the next day. Read More »

Got some college questions? Unsure of a decision? Need to pad that resume? Just wanna chat it up with some really awesome chics? We’ve got the girls for you. Hit them up in the comments or shoot them an email with the subject “College Q&A”!

Question:
I don’t like drinking but I feel like that’s all there ever is to do in my college town on the weekends. What are people supposed to do in college who don’t like to get wasted every night? And how are we supposed to find friends when all they ever do is go out and get drunk?

GPA Girl:

Wow, do I ever feel your pain. In my experience, there are lots of us non-drinkers out there, especially at the beginning of undergrad, but as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to find people who want to do things other than get trashed. Not to mention that people who don’t like to drink are usually introverted, so it can be harder to find them and befriend them in the first place. Sigh. The deck is stacked against you, girl. But here is some good news: I managed to find amazing, incredible, awesome friends in college even though I didn’t drink a drop. Most of my friends did drink occasionally, but they shared my lack of interest in getting blasted at large parties every weekend.  Read More »

I had known Jon (name has been changed since I know homeboy reads this site) for a little over a year. Our entire relationship was based on drinking together; we met through a friend at a bar, exchanged numbers and quickly became one another’s drinking friends. You know, the one you call when you’re drunk at 10:30 on a Friday and looking for fun people to meet up with. Preferably with cute friends.

Our relationship was flirty and filled with sexual tension.
Yeah, from the moment we met I knew we would inevitably be taking a train to Sexy Town.

And so we did. Last weekend, after drinking one too many vodka sodas at a karaoke bar, I ended up at Jon’s apartment (after stumbling down the street and making a weird pit-stop at some stranger’s apartment who was entertaining 12 hippie friends with a 12-foot bong. Who knows?). Jon and I were talking in the living room and the next thing I knew we were making out on and our way to his bedroom. Read More »

Bye bye booze

In this new series we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer for a month as she takes on a personal challenge. This month we’re following Lauren from University of Michigan. She’s going sober for the month of February and will be sharing her ups and downs with us each Saturday.]

When I told my friends I would be giving up alcohol for an entire month, I got one of three reactions:

1. Why would you do that?!
2. I bet you $100 you don’t make it.
3. Why the hell would you do that?!

When I told my family, I got these reactions:

1. “Bullsh*t.” – Mom
2. “Why would you do that??” – Dad
3. “It’s a good thing your friends are still drinking; I doubt anyone would like you if they were sober.” – Brother

You see, I am a party girl and everyone knows it. I am incredibly responsible, hard-working and focused when I need to be, but when I let loose, I really let loose. My friends can always count on me to not only join them at the party (flask in hand), but to be the party. They didn’t call me Drunk Lauren freshman year for nothing.  Read More »

One Friday night after a long week, a couple of friends who live in the next apartment complex threw a party. After getting all dolled up (and taking a few roomie shots), two of my roommates and I headed over with numerous handles of vodka, while the other two headed to a different shindig. Upon our arrival, my boyfriend met us there and all of us decided this was a night to get really, really drunk.

We started taking shots immediately as music blasted and the party got more and more crowded.  It was a small apartment with tons of people inside, making it hard to move around, so logically we just stayed put in the corner we were in… and continued to take shots…for a few hours. We eventually stumbled to another party where my boyfriend and I got separated from our friends and, feeling frisky, decided to just make our way back to my place for a little lovin’.

Things were goin’ well in the bedroom. And by well, I mean crazy. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got a little too much booze running through your system. We were in the middle of a particularly acrobatic situation when my boyfriend, who I must have been relying on to hold me up, suddenly fell off the bed. Naturally, I went down with him, slamming my head on my dresser along the way. I hit the floor as a searing pain shot through my head and my ear felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t move. I layed there in the fetal position moaning as my boyfriend freaked out. Read More »

“What happened last night?”

Ahh, the blackout. These words have become oh-so-familiar over the past two years I’ve spent at this fine university. Sunday mornings – Gatorade and a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich in hand – I sit in my living room with my roommates, attempting to piece together the events from the night before. Looking through pictures, decoding unintelligible text messages sent to the cute guy from Calculus, my friend apologizing for puking on my shoes or stealing my pizza before I had a chance to get the door.

I can’t be mad at them though, or even blame them. Sometimes the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol takes over and there is no turning back. They are no longer the same person and are going to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Like the infamous girl-on-girl makeout sesh which is now plastered all over Facebook.

But like they taught you in elementary school, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And recently, that person was me.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over two vomit-includingly cute years. We moved in together in August to a new apartment where he makes me dinner after a long night at work, and we’ve even talked marriage.

We were the stereotypical happy couple until about two weeks ago during a blackout sorta night.

All of my friends were finally back in town before this spring (spring? There’s two feet of snow outside) semester started, so naturally we had to celebrate get wasted. After a long night of cheap vodka and too many shots at the bar, we went back to my friend’s apartment for afties. Just another successful night.

That is, until I realized that my boyfriend was missing and I had no idea where he was. I started roaming around the apartment. I looked in the kitchen, then the bathroom. Nothing. Finally, I peeked my head into my friend’s bedroom and there he was. Naked. On top of a girl. Who was also naked. Read More »

My sophomore year I lived with my best friend in an all-girls’ dorm. Needless to say, squeezing 500+ girls into one building was begging for trouble. Constantly surrounded by tampon wrappers, curling irons and vaginas (I mean, really) took its toll on my tiny, horny roomie. She met a guy in her Creative Writing class who she believed to be “the One,”even though he was an obvious tool (bleach blonde, tan, AND president of a frat). But she was starved for some lovin’, and started to see (read: have sex with) him on a regular basis.

One night in the fall, she dragged a couple of us out to one of his events, a chicken-wing eating contest at a famously tasty local bar. We went, hoping for some free grub. Unfortunately, the only one of us who got to taste anything at the contest was my roomie, who was proudly sucking face with the frat president, who, I swear, had little flecks of BBQ sauce crusting in the corners of his mouth.

So, to ease my own guilt about being single and hungry, I started to order some shots at the bar. Eventually, I was plastered, happily snapping drunk kissy-face pics with two of my other girl friends. The roomie (and toolbag) were nowhere to be found. Read More »

Unfortunately my required outfit is less extravagant

Giving up my nights out was not something I was especially prepared to do when I started scouring my college town for a job; who wants to be folding clothes amidst an asthma-inducing Abercrombie cologne cloud late into the evening when your girls are out at $1 pitcher night? Nobody.

That’s why I became a cocktail waitress.

Well, that and I heard Tiger Woods George Clooney was fond of them.

Naturally, I see a lot of…er… interesting, for lack of a better word, things during the late night shifts. Things that I know I’ve been guilty of doing, and that all you CC ladies are probably guilty of, as well. Believe me, your signature twist+bend and snap combo dance moves do not look as sexy as you think, even if that drunk frat boy tells you they are. And as good as Journey is, “Don’t Stop Believing” is not “the best song of all effing time!!”

Because our thoughts tend to be a little muddled when we’re a few sheets to the stale bar air wind, I thought I’d help everyone see just what a typical drunken night is from a more honest (read: sober) perspective. So join me as we analyze things (hey, we’re all friends here!) from both sides of the crowded bar. Read More »