There's got to be more to life than this?

Hundreds hide away in this ‘haven’. Their intoxicated minds are focused on only one thing – to have the best night they can – but in the morning they won’t remember whether it was a good night or not. Apart, of course, from the photographs of the drunken haze spread unsparingly over the Internet.

My friends and I move on from pub to bar to club, an endless line of drinking under the false pretence of happiness. Tension bubbles everywhere, reminders of the problems of the day, pushed to the back now, for these few inebriated hours where you have to be full of the joys of life. It’s a typical raucous Saturday night, everywhere is packed; it takes twice as long as it would normally to get to the other side of the room, as you are forced to navigate your way through the crowd, unwilling to interrupt their fun. The scent of alcohol permeates through the room; the colour and action provide a feast for the senses. Everyone has their large groups, something my companions for the evening notice with a jealous eye. I, away from my normal social group for a long-standing friend’s birthday, observe it all from a distance. This is not my scene.

As we reach our final destination for the night, so it seems does everyone else. The queue takes a while to wind its way to the entrance, and by the time we reach the front, the price has risen. Forced by a few seconds to now pay ten pounds, I enter rather unenthusiastically. My mood is not lightened by the sight of the various men, slightly older than the general club demographic, whose sleazy eyes follow the scantily clad girls flaunting themselves amongst the crowds. Podiums jut out of the sea of people all across the club. My friend, herself in a dress that barely covers the essentials, begs me to join her on the podium to dance but in my jeans, I’m hardly what the lonely men surrounding the podiums are looking for. Loud music deafens, rendering conversation futile. In a place like this you can either lose yourself in the atmosphere or step away and be lost in your own thoughts. My thoughts start with longings to be back in the safety of the Student Union, but then I think a little deeper.

So, it is here, in this mass of stereotypes that I start to think: surely there’s got to be more to life that this? Modern culture, for the younger generations, seems to revolve around drinking until you’re full of the joys of life, but it’s a false sense of contentment. If, when asked to go out by my friends, I were to say ‘No, I don’t fancy drinking today, I want to do something different’, I’m quite sure they would think of me as boring and missing out on the fun but it is rapidly becoming a dull existence in itself. We go out, we drink and then we report it on facebook. It’s what is considered normal but why should we conform? Does it really mean we have to become shells of unity, all moving in similar ways around this one idea of normality? No? Maybe some people just forget this, maybe we all just need a little perspective or a new sense of the wider possibilities life has to offer us all. But then again, maybe that’s all just too much to think about, my mind is full already, so much work and so much pressure, maybe tonight I can just forget: Pass me another drink!