Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: A Loser's Guide to Partying

Sep 10

Sep 10 Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: A Loser's Guide to Partying

What’s up, Class of 2018? It’s been a few months since you graduated first in your class, and the glory’s starting to wear off. This is partially because you were homeschooled, but mostly because the neighborhood hoodlums have departed for their lowly state schools. For weeks now, your neighbor Jimmy’s mom has been bragging to your mom about how much fun Jimmy is having at school. She drones on about underage drinking this, and premarital sex that. You think to yourself, “Man, I can’t wait for that to be me!” But fret not; we’ve all suffered through the same excruciating wait. September is upon us and soon enough you’ll have something better to do than write My Little Pony fan-fiction and masturbate aggressively until you collapse (we’re speaking from personal experience here).

What’s that something, you ask? Parties. Sweaty, crowded, welcome week parties. But there’s one problem: unlike Jimmy, you’re a total fucking loser. It’s a common Northwestern affliction. Thankfully, us friendly folk at Sherman Ave are here to make you look cool. Follow this fool-proof1 guide, and we 100-percent guarantee2 that nobody will be able to tell that you were, for example, breastfed until you were thirteen, or that you have had more Neopets than social interactions. Not that we would know anything about those things ourselves….hahHAahaHAaha….

Friends. You might have heard of these. Friends are other humans that you exploit for personal gain. Seek out prospective friends who were probably high school bullies. Listen for people bragging about having a “text to get in.” These are your tickets into a party. You don’t necessarily have to talk with them, just make sure to follow them closely — no one will suspect a thing.
Dress. Dressing for parties is hard. Your goal is to sexually excite another human being, yet you are fated to serve as a human napkin for various spilled party liquids. Our advice? Throw on some jeans and that t-shirt from church camp and call it a day. Totally replaceable, totally normcore.
Drinking. Are you ready to get Northwasted?!!? Get it?! No? Well, that was funny, and you’d be laughing if you were drunk. So go ahead, pretend to enjoy the burning hellfire that is a shot of Skol Vodka (your new best friend). Reflect on the suspiciously piss-flavored light beer you are currently guzzling from a solo cup. Every sip makes this overcrowded basement a little less shitty and every social interaction a little less painful.
Drugs. Is this reality not enough for you? Lucky for you, there are drugs. Marijuana — also known as weed, reefer, mary jane, and “the ganja” — is readily available at parties. Pretend you’re looking for the bathroom, and scour the party’s back rooms until you find a circle of peers inhaling smelly smoke. Ask if you may join in on the smelly smoke smoking. If they’re not assholes, they’ll let you join. Not into breathing things that aren’t air? In this case, try snorting some pills from the bathroom’s medicine cabinet. After all, college is about trying new things...right?
Conversation. Between milky bong hits and pulls from the bottle of Skol, you’re bound to exchange at least a few grunts with fellow partygoers. Occasionally, these interactions will stretch on for minutes at a time. At this point, you’re probably drunk enough that it’ll be easy to have a lively discussion about how Macklemore's music changed your life. Feel free to sprinkle in a “bro” or two every once in a while in order to sound “chill.” Just do not talk about the weather. Do not talk about classes. And please, for fuck’s sake, do not tell the story of how you lost your virginity on top of a SAT prep book because nobody wants to hear it. You go to school in the Midwest — this is ACT territory.
Behavior. Be loud, be sloppy, and be all-around annoying. Drink too much, sing along to every song, and take off your shirt in the middle of the dancefloor. Aggressively make out with the first willing human and make sure everyone is watching. Yeah, some uptight assholes will probably kick you out. In this situation, our advice is to shrug aloofly and declare “Sorry for party rockin’.” Some might frown upon this behavior, but we here at Sherman Ave just call it being #iconic.