Strawpedo-ing (The Curious Drinking Habits of Students)

It's that time of the day/month/year again, aka time to wistfully review my student days and the lessons they taught me. Today we cover the (messy and controversial) topic of drinking habits.

You may have already noticed, but drinking copious amounts of alcohol has never been my thing. This made for a slightly awkward adjustment period when I started studenthood at university, way back when in 2009. Everyone I lived with in my student digs drank. Everyone clubbed. They didn't go to concerts and get down and dirty in the mosh pit. They didn't drink socially. They drank for a hella good time.

Being a social drinker meant I went through the same gentle (okay, not always gentle, mostly persistent) persuasion, whereby my housemates tried to convince me to drink more, get a little drunk, do more shots. Since I am stubborn as a mule when it comes to my personal beliefs, I didn't budge, but I did get to watch the drinking habits of students from the sideline. 

The art of strawpedos. A drinking trick I quickly witnessed on my first night at university. The older students were taking the younger ones on a bar crawl. We reached a pub in the city centre, settled down, and then one of the guides stepped up to teach us how to strawpedo a bottle of booze (actually, I was probably the only one who didn't know about strawpedo-ing, being as disinclined to getting drunk as I was at the time).

The general point of a strawpedo is to drink a bottle of alcohol as quickly as possible to reach intoxication as quickly as possible. The drink of choice at the time was a blue WKD, but as the guide happily regaled us with some of his drinking stories, it became apparent you could also strawpedo anything (my tipple of choice would be a J2O).

Other than not consuming my drink in one go, I also avoided drinking games (first year only, I came to enjoy them in my second and third years). Drinking games are used as a way of socially pre-drinking, cheapening a night-out. That said, they tend to offer more than a way to get drunk, allowing you to chat with strangers and get to know them. A personal favourite of mine was Irish Snap, but you can play that without alcohol and still have a lot of manic fun.

Pre-drinking definitely belongs to students, even though young adults will also pre-drink to lighten the cost of a night-out. This is purely because students are better informed in pre-drinking ways, are better at spotting a boozy bargain, and have a repertoire of games/methods to make the pre-drinking rite messier. No sensibly drinking wine from a sensibly sized glass while chatting about current affairs. 

You might think that having witnessed the wild drinking habits of students that I swore off alcohol for life. Far from it, I learned that it is okay to loosen up a little, learned my own limits and found enjoyment in clubs (but only when surrounded with the right people). Sure, I won't be heading out to bars anytime soon to strawpedo them dry, or to do multiple shots of tequila, but I will be heading out to catch up with friends who I haven't seen in a long time.

So, alls well that ends well, even if the path there was befuddling.