1. Summer Before College
You’ve been having the summer of your life. Between graduating, beach week, concerts, and the endless nights of raging with your high school buddies, you can’t imagine life getting much better. In the days leading up to your departure for college, you make your goodbye rounds and promise to keep in touch with every single one of your friends. Your friends even make a Facebook group so you can all keep in touch. Little do you know that the first week of college, scratch that, the first night of college, you’ll forget all about how awesome you thought that summer was.
2. Winter Break of Freshman Year
This turning point is a big one. The first semester of college is at its end and you and your group of friends get together to party for the first time since you all left for school. You walk into the party and think, “Wait, where are the kegs? Oh, this party was B.Y.O.B.? Well fuck me.” There is already somewhat of a rift in your group between the guys and girls that went Greek, and the guys and girls that didn’t. While you and your friends that went Greek are trading stories from pledging and seeing who can out drink who, your friends that chose not to go Greek are trading stories about all the times they snuck Four Loko into their freshman dorms and didn’t get caught by their RA. What nerds. Your friends ask you why you haven’t been keeping in touch as much. You suppose it’s because you’ve been having too much fun. You don’t dislike any of them, per se, you just kind of start to wonder, “Am I in a league of my own?”
3. Summer After Freshman Year
This turning point, for many, is the biggest. You don’t just have three weeks, but three whole months with your high school friends. You think about how awesome it’s going to be, how it’ll be just like the summer before you all went to college. You’re wrong again. It’s been two weeks and you’re already sick and tired of drinking in your friend’s basements, and hearing all of the girls yap about how their sorority is the best on their campus, or some shit like that. You’re also tired of the, “My school rages harder than your school does” bullshit. You remember the good ol’ B.Y.O.B. rule this summer, though. Except, when you do bring your own beer to a party, it gets stolen by some kid wearing cargo shorts and a [insert high school name and sport team here] t-shirt. Your long list of high school friends that you’d be willing to hit up to hang out with gets cut by about half. You don’t dislike any of them, per se, it’s just that you’re beyond ready to go back to school.
4. Winter Break of Sophomore Year
You come to the conclusion that you would rather drive forty-five minutes across the county to see one of your friends from college, than drive five minutes down the road to hang out with a large group of friends from your high school. You’re almost content staying at home and watching Mad Men re-runs on Netflix over going out to party. You don’t dislike any of them, per se, you’re just starting to feel like you’re over the whole party scene with your high school friends.
5. Summer After Sophomore Year
You’re just over it, man. Just over it. All of it. Your long list of high school friends that you’d be willing to hit up to hang out with has dwindled down to about ten people. And those ten or so people tend to have summer jobs just like you. One day after work, you drive past your old neighborhood pool, a former hangout spot during high school summers. You see a large group of guys from your high school class talking to a group of high school senior girls. You shake your head, maybe wish them luck, and keep driving. You don’t dislike any of them, per se, but your attitude towards seeing them has shifted from excitement to “If I see them, I see them.”
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