Work.Retire.Die.

*Editor’s Note: This article comes from Intern Sam, our beloved moron of an employee. Check out the rest of his content here.

I went home a couple weeks ago, but since every other normal school had already started I had nobody my age around. At first, I was bummed, but soon was invited by my lovely parents to go with them to two dinner parties. I’ve become so accustomed to gross basements and the same 10 EDM songs that I was weirdly excited to attend. Adult dinner parties are massively different from the social scene of college, for better and for worse. Here are my pro’s and con’s. 

Pros and Cons of Attending an Adult Dinner Party as a College Student

Pro: Free Food and Drinks

Now that I’m pretending to be an adult, I have to shop for myself and cook my own food. It’s really not that hard, other than paying for it all. A huge plus of adult dinner parties versus college parties is the abundance of free food and drinks. I haven’t been to a party that supplied more than a bowl of chips since middle school which I think is pretty sad.

Adults have really mastered the potluck technique so that everybody contributes a bit. This is economical, plus you get to make snarky comments about how shitty Nancy’s bread was. I rarely, if ever, attend parties that provide alcohol. At an adult dinner party, however, it’s a whole new ballgame. There were fancy IPA’s I’ve never heard of, wine, scotch, whatever my heart desired.

Adulthood 1, College 0. 

Con: Everyone Drives

The fact that every person drives to adult dinner parties can either 1, limit how much they drink and make it less fun, or 2, drink the same amount and drive home. The same adults who have lectured me about drinking and driving for the past decade aren’t so quick to uphold their own rules and values. Right after I lied about liking your dry bread, Nancy, you guzzled a bottle and a half of wine and drove home.

The reality is that adults are marginally more responsible than college students; we’re all just pretending to know what’s right and wrong and doing our best, kind of. 

Pro: A Change of Pace

I love a solid college party in a hot basement blasting not great music, but adult dinner parties are an amazing change of pace. Having a drunk conversation with somebody and actually being able to hear them is pretty incredible. These are people that I wouldn’t normally interact with in a social situation and they have way different perspectives. I’ve had the same exact conversation at college parties too many times to count.

They all go pretty much like this: 

Con: Less Relatable

Yes the change of pace is fun, but these conversations are way harder to join in on. I don’t have a real job, nor have I ever. All of these people have been working for 20+ years. Technically I’m a business major and should be able to hold my own in a conversation with miscellaneous middle aged business people, but a year and a half of online school has not done well for me in terms of learning. Plus, you don’t take very many actual business classes related to your major until Junior year anyway. 

Pro: James Taylor

I’m not sure what it is with James Taylor and anybody over the age of 50, but they absolutely love the guy. Both dinner parties I attended had music playing and so much of it was James Taylor.

Adults always have anecdotes about his songs too. For example, “Carolina in My Mind” came on and someone told me how it always reminds them of that one time their friends took a road trip to North Carolina and that song was on the cassette tape they made for it. I can’t wait to be older and tell some kid about how Bad and Boujee always reminds me that my bio on Instagram was “Rain drop, drop top” for a period of time in 2017. Fascinating stuff really. 

Con: Youngest in the Room

Being the youngest in the room sometimes has its perks, but in general is not the best position to be in. You’re going to always be talked down to, which is good to keep my ego in check, but bad because it’s so damn annoying. I think adults sometimes forget that I can just fact check them in 30 seconds with the literal computer in my pocket, so it’s always fun to be talked down to and prove them wrong (politely, of course).

I was raised right and know a few James Taylor songs, but even still some adults always love to tell me how my generation knows nothing about music and it’s all garbage now and James Taylor was a real artist and they can’t listen to the radio anymore blah blah blah. It’s not like they listen to the music their parents did either. 

Overall, I had a good time attending these little social outings. It’s not something I need to do often, but every once in a while is good to keep me grounded. I’d love to see the table turned and have adults come drink bottom shelf vodka and listen to Dua Lipa with me and my friends. Any takers?