Yesterday was a Saturday night. Obviously. And, if you happen to live in a dorm full of sorority girls right next to the stadium where a State College is having a Football Game, then attendance is mandatory to either: The Game, a tailgate party, a party of no particular nature, or some sorority get-together that will end up going to one of the aforementioned activites.

Maybe I'm wrong. My perspective as an out-of-state freshman is skewed, surely. For example, some upper classmen (I hope) may have progressed to the level of having-something-else-to-do-besides-attending-sports-events. But, seeing as how my dorm floor is composed of freshmen sorority-inductees (generalization for simplicity), reality comes in the form of shrunken jerseys saran-wrapped to torsos, bouncing down to the stadium on the $200 ticket purchased by the parental units.

So, what's a girl to do if she has nothing to do on this Saturday night? I went to the gym for about an hour, and afterwards watched There's Something About Mary with my roommate.

This is important. I, a morning person, tend to get to sleep by 11 or 11:30, so watching the movie was winding down my night. However, my roomate was waiting for a phone call so that she could go out.

Out. Going Out in high school was a big deal. Go Out on the weekends. Go Out on a Tuesday night if there was a frat party and you could pass for a college student. Getting Out was The Thing To Do.

Rest assured, Getting Out will always be The Thing To Do. You can see people, you can do things, you can have fun. And really, Going Out is fun. I do it a lot. I hate just sitting in my dorm room. I'm Out, Out Downtown, Out Biking, Out At The Gym, or even Out At The Library.

There are variations on Out, though. In high school and college, Out is divided into two categories: Out, and Out With Beer (or some variation). Out With Beer is like, way cooler than just plain old Out. And we believed this in high school because Out With Beer had all the trappings of being cool enough to obtain beer. Parties required beer. Even hanging outside the downtown liquor shop waiting for some guy going in to buy beer for you was seen as a Very Cool Out which would then lead to an Awesome Night To Remember If You Could.

Well, my roomate waited. And waited. And then, Out (with beer) ended up being canceled.

In high school, I wasn't Popular. My friends didn't wear the required AE or Abercrombie wear. I still maintain that my best friend was (and is still) the hottest thing to walk the halls of my high school (she's a dancer, and that's really all that you need to know). It's just that I was never in that brand of Iming, polo-wearing, party-ing, etc. You know what I mean, I'm sure. And that's not to say that those people are any less or that my group was any more. We just had different pursuits. We went Out, but our Outs consisted of Open Mic Nights or starting an uncensored newspaper.

But, I was intimidated by the Popular Out. The parties, the drinking, the smoking, yada yada. It wasn't important enough for me to pursue, but it was intimidating, because it was agreed-upon that that type of Out was Cool.

Anyway, that never was my thing. I hung out downtown, but never with a drink as a date. However, I did assume (until senior year) that all those adventures were as Awesome as their participants said they were the day after.

Back to my roomate. I lived high school life very independantly. I went downtown by myself if I wanted to and no one else could come. I would say that I was (and still am) very self-sufficient. And yet, I always thought that the kids who always did things together were like that simply because that's how circumstances conspired. They were just that close.

I love my roomate, honestly. She's nice and funny. But last night, I watched her wait for hours, all dressed up, for a phone call so that she could go do something. The thought of just doing something, whether or not friends would accompany her never dawned on her, even when the friends called and canceled. And she could have. The frat accross the street was doing something, all the college students were trickling by our dorm on their way to either sleep, or more Fun And Excitement.

And I guess I've always assumed that because me and my friends didn't frequent the Late Night Beer scene it was because there was a problem with me (wrong personality, wrong clothes, wrong body-type), not that I just wasn't trying hard enough.

I enjoy my independance. I love my friends, but I won't do the all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-go dance for them on a Saturday night for three hours.

If I'm all dressed up, I go.

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This is too rambling. I'll proof it later. Right now, the day's begging for a bike ride to the next city over. Yumm.