I am turning 21 in a week. Does this really mean I have to go out with my overly obnoxious friends and drink until my white vans look like they were customized with a vomit color and smell? I should be excited that I can LEGALLY drink every time I watch the Dolphins lose a not so close game, and when I must interact with my distant family members on holidays. It’s just that I don’t feel the need to fall into the cliché of every rated R teenage movie.
I started this out as a classy guide on how to get semi wasted with friends while also being able to pick up chicks on your 21st b-day bash. As much as I love writing smarmy opinion articles that make it sound like I’m Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers (before he fell for the red head of course), I am renouncing my jerk-hood …for once.
That beautiful picture of me with my eyes glazed over, a tiara on my head, and a Hooters waitress pretending to like my arm around her so she can get a better tip picture you were hoping would be posted on Instagram the day after my birthday will not be happening. It’s not that I don’t like to party. I can fist pump with the best of them, including the cast of Jersey Shore (before they got cancelled). But I just don’t know if I can be pretend to be happy while the people I call friends laugh at me twerk while drinking a bottle of Corona.
I think I will skip the super bro night of drinking. Maybe I’m not one of the guys from The Hangover or a Barney Stinson disciple. It’s exhausting trying to live up to society’s standards and always updating your social networking resumes to seem like your 21st birthday was more fun than your 5th grade classmates who you haven’t seen in ten years. I urge you to delete your Facebook, Instagram, and even Myspace and do something unheard of in this generation. Live your life without a public following and self-paparazzi. Enjoy the little moments simply because you enjoy them. And do so without a flash from your camera.
I am turning 21 next week. By then I will probably have broken up with my current girlfriend and will have given up going to my dream school next fall because of funds. And I will be more than fine. Not because I went out drinking exotic beers with exotic girls that probably have exotic diseases. Because I have people that care about me. I am not accepting an Oscar so I am not naming anybody and neither should you on Twitter.
Maybe my 21st birthday has helped me realize that I am not made for this generation. This is starting to sound as depressing as the kid that goes to the McDonalds playground instead of Chuckie Cheese on his birthday. Unfortunately, I tried making reservations there but apparently I’m banned. The most important thing is to have a good time with the people close to you. When that fails I’ll hit the strip club.
Kyle Rambo can’t decide on what he wants to major in so he takes out his frustration on the people that read his writing. He spends most of his time dunking Oreos in milk and watching old ’90s sitcom reruns. The only thing he likes more than complaining is his gel-filled hair.
Rambo’s College Survival Guide is a blog meant to save the student population from all the horrors that come with being a college student. As with this blog, never take life too seriously.