nighean-neonach wrote:At our age? I mean, with teenagers, there certainly is this kind of pressure, but among students, adults? Well, maybe I'm not the most average person in this regard, I don't care about having as many friends as possible, I like having really good friends, and I like spending time talking to them, meeting at home or in a nice café... (actually, some of my best friends live a long way away from me, in Scotland for example, so seeing them usually means spending a holiday there)
Yes, but I actually started a bachelor last year where most went to straight from school. So there were more than enough people who were 18 or 19 when they started. All they seem to talk about are the uni parties and parties and alcohol in general. At least it's been some while since I last heard comments like "Oh, I was soooooo drunk on Saturday and called so many people from my address book, did I also call you?"... I also know people who spent their holidays together (and I'm not talking about couples here), though.
I've never considered parties to be very important for socialising. At university you usually first meet new people in your classes, and then if you like each other you maybe go and have a coffee together, and if you really become friends, you meet for a cosy chat at home or you spend an afternoon in town, etc. Parties don't play a big role in all that, do they? And well, about the whole flirting business - I'm happily married anyway, so I'm not interested in that
Sure, you definitely get to know people in classes or tutorials and you might also go and eat in the student cafeteria or sit down in the uni café or the uni pub*, but I have the impression that those parties play an important role. Maybe it's also me (I'm not the most social person), but at uni, there's hardly anything else, at least based on what's advertised in the parts I go to. Although there are uni parties at least once a week, many complain that the city is so boring and that there's so little you can do. While it's not the most interesting city indeed, but looks rather small for a big city, I have the impression that there's more than enough. It might just be an image problem.
* Supposed to be an Irish pub, but don't ask me what's so Irish about selling German beer or flat bread called "Leeds", "London" or "Edinburgh".