Sophie was already into clubbing and experimenting with alcohol and its intoxicating effects long before she went to university. Once there however, it felt obligatory. She was alone, but excited – she was not going to be left out of the social side of uni – and she was no stick-in-the-mud.
Sophie was bombarded with invitations to go 'partying'. Firstly she was hit with 'fresher's week' (which turned out to be fresher's month), and indeed continued in one form or another throughout the academic year. At the same time, all the students, who had never had their own 'pad' before were having house-party after house-party. It didn't seem to matter whether you knew them or not, word got out and then you met more and more people, who could feel lonely?
Opting out was frowned on as if it were a judgement on the inviter, and anyway Sophie wanted to experience everything! The journey was agonising, lectures missed, essays unwritten, warnings and penalty marks. She started to socialise in order to distract herself from all the negative stuff. Soon it felt wrong not to be going out.