Girls Night Out for the College Woman

Being a young woman we have this ritual that we participate in with other women whom we are close with. We do this ritual when we just need to have a night to ourselves, have a little fun, and stop stressing about work or school. This ritual is called Girls Night Out.

Growing up in my household my mother would participate in this ritual probably twice a month where she would go out with her close friends either to dinner or someone’s house for a party. I always would get so jealous of her being able to dress up and look pretty to go somewhere with her friends late at night past my bedtime.

Well now being all grown up into a young woman I too now participate in ritual. In a way I thought this was a right of passage. Now being a young woman in college I participate in this ritual, but it hasn’t really been the experience I thought it would have been.

Here are some of my own experiences at JMU.

Before me and my friends go out we typically get dressed up pretty nicely. We will ditch the sweatpants and throw on a dress, cute shirt with banded skirt, or tight jeans and a tank top. I know over the years I haven’t exactly cared as much as I did in the past of what I wore. Recently this weekend however, when I went out I felt extremely under dressed.  All the girls at this party seemed to think they were all going to be in a magazine or something because they looked like they took hours getting ready. You could tell they put a lot of thought into this outfit from what shoes they were going to wear down to the last accessory.

Once I am finished getting ready typically I will either meet up with some girlfriends or they will come to my place. We start taking pictures, of course to document how cute we look because it took hours for us to look this way. Then after some talking and goofing off we will call a cab so we can go to the party.

Now all the “fun” starts at the party. This is when you have to make a game plan for the night. You choose to either A get loose have a fun time and what happens,  happens or you choose B where you decide exactly how you will get home, which friends you are going home with, what you will do when your friends ditch you, who you will hang out with, and what time you plan on getting home. Unfortunately I am not one of those people who can just walk into a party and not have a game plan. Mostly because I have learned from experience what it feels like to not have a game plan and end up standing outside in the cold for over and hour trying to get a ride back home.

When I have my game plan I can finally try to enjoy the party. I will get into a group with my friends on the dance floor and we will all start dancing with each other, that is until we start to get picked off one by one by guys. Usually then I will stay dancing with one of my friends or I will find one of my guy friends to hang out with for the rest of the party. Most times I have a great time going out, its nice to do something besides studying or running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.

Thinking back to when my mom went out how come having a girls night has become so difficult. Granted I am going out to house parties and not resturants for dinner or the bars, waiting till I am 21 to do that, but sometimes I just wish not everything had to be so much effort. The pressure of having to look drop dead gorgeous and having guys hit on you all night long can really be annoying. But yet we do it, we participate in this ritual maybe because its all we know or perhaps we actually enjoy participating in the ritual.