Yesterday, after having a good old-fashioned rant sesh with a friend, I made a declaratory statement that had been on my mind for a while. I was fed up with spending so much time in my dorm, tired of sitting around, ready for a change! I want to explore the city, get more involved with the local community, see what this city has to offer, go to new club meetings, meet new people, and just have a memorable experience here!
What I said was: I need to get out more.
Unfortunately what she heard was: I was to go to a party.
Cause that's where I got invited. I said maybe, since I'm apparently very bad at saying no.
In the moment, I really struggled with the decision, do I go to be a good sport? Everyone will be drinking there, do I want to deal with that? Would I have to stay the night? The apartment was 2 miles away from campus, that's a long way to walk home alone in the dark.
I started to say no, but was immediately met with the ultimate coercion, "But you have to!"
I ended the discussion with a resounding maybe, and a promise to seriously consider going. Unfortunately, that was a little bit of a lie, I'm only seriously considering good excuse to get out of it.
This morning, I was texting the best advice unit, my mother, about the predicament. After explaining the whole deal, Mama K imparted her wisdom upon me: This was Peer Pressure.
It was like every light in my mind went off at once, cue the Queen song, yes folks, this is indeed peer pressure. My response? Oh.
I realized that for the first time in my life, I was being peer pressured to do something I didn't want to do. My mind flashed back to all of those DARE lectures from the local cops in elementary school. While my friend wasn't trying to get me to do hardcore drugs like the officers talked about, the idea was the same. And it kind of freaked me out a little bit.
Before this, the only kind of peer pressure I had was to eat that third piece of pizza or to go on the Gravitron at the carnival. I realized how different this situation was than what I was used to. I had never had someone who I considered a friend try to push me into doing something that extreme I really didn't want to do. I mean not that a house party is extreme, but it's something I didn't want to do, she knew that, and she didn't care.
I mean, it didn't greatly affect me. I stood my ground pretty well, and I didn't go because I didn't want to. But it still made me pretty uncomfortable knowing that she didn't care enough about my feelings and opinions to recognize the fact that I didn't want to go.
What am I going to do about it? Well honestly, I don't know. By the time you're reading this, it's been about a week and a half since the incident and the party is long over now. I am icing her out a little bit, because I don't know if I want to be friends with someone who doesn't recognize that I don't like nor do I want to attend these kinds of parties. I don't judge anyone who wants to go, it's just not for me. That's where I'm leaving it for now, putting the issue on hold for a while. I'll wait it out and make a final decision later. Why? Because in complete honesty, I don't want to deal with friendship issues right now. I just want to get my work done so I can go home to see my best friends, play with my dog, and have more free time to write.
I'd best be off to finish up my homework now, I've got three quarters of a presentation to finish due at 6! Before I go, I want to ask, has anyone else had to deal with situations like this? How did you respond? What happened? Leave me your sage advice in the comments!
Until next time,
Writing to you from M, Personally
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