I’ve had a revelation over these past few months: I think I’m getting old. I’m not quite sure when I started to figure this out. Maybe it was this summer when I wore a shirt and tie to work every day. Perhaps it was the first time I got really excited by the check-scanning feature on the Wells Fargo ATMs. Or it could have been the first time I heard “Whip My Hair.” Most likely, though, it was this past weekend at Synergy’s Halloween party. As I stood on that packed sweaty dance floor dressed as serial killer extraordinaire Dexter Morgan, a thought crossed my mind: “I can’t do this anymore.”

I’m over the Stanford party scene. There. I said it.

(Your first response to that statement may have been, “What Stanford party scene?” If so, please stop reading this column immediately. You, sir, are a true bastion of wit and hilarity. That joke has certainly never been uttered before about the social scene on this campus, and you will find no humor in this clichéd humor column. Seriously, go write for SNL or something. That’s truly groundbreaking comedy these days.)

The first years of my Stanford career were a wonderful and carefree time. The clarion call of Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK” ringing through the houses of the Bromuda Triangle would beckon me to the dance floor like a call to prayer echoing across the minarets of Mecca. I treated every Café Night at French House like it was my Last Supper—only without the bread and impending crucifixions. One of my best friends, who attends Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., graced me with a visit near the end of freshman year. Honestly, the thought of her school horrified me. She didn’t know what a party was! The fact that she attended college in the tundra notwithstanding, her poor liberal arts college actually lacked frats. I had to show her a good time, and off we went to what was then called Kappa Sig’s Luau Party. She had to go. How would she ever learn to brocialize otherwise? In my mind, she was a lost soul.

Yet, at the time, I was the lost soul. I feel like everyone goes through that period during freshman year. Stanford culture doesn’t help things either. Like China did to the Dalai Lama, we upperclassmen exile freshmen to all-campus parties. That’s because we know better. We know that low-key socialization with real conversation is the way to actually have fun here. As you spend more time at Stanford, you realize that the smaller events end up being the most memorable: your best friend’s birthday, the party with whatever group you happen to belong to or just impromptu dorm room ragers. In addition, there’s also the best invention ever created at Stanford. (The Internet doesn’t count. We only partly helped to create that.) You know what I’m talking about: special dinner. If freshmen are our Dalai Lama at Stanford, then special dinner is the upperclassmen Tibet.

Today, the tap of Keystone Light at Kappa Sig runs drier than the Sahara. Some freshmen shed a tear, but I couldn’t care less. I can blast “Like a G6” to deafening levels in my own room. (In a purely ironic sense, of course. I wouldn’t be caught dead with that in my iTunes library.) I might be over the Stanford party scene, but that doesn’t mean I’m done having fun at Stanford. There are plenty of ridiculous times to be had; you just have to know where to look. And trust me, it’s not the Bromuda Triangle.

Honestly, these days I’d rather curl up with my girlfriend for a nice Saturday night in. I’m so beat from the week that running across campus doesn’t seem like the most fun anyway. Plus, actual conversation can be had. We can catch up on each other’s lives in the midst of a slew of midterms, papers and events. I’ll probably be forced to watch some Hugh Grant romantic comedy, but we all have to take one for the team, right?

Okay, fine. You just caught me in a lie. I’d probably demand that we pick the Hugh Grant movie on Netflix. (Seriously though, have you seen “Love Actually?”)

See? I told you I was getting old.

If Shane makes you feel like you’re living a teenage dream, then you should definitely e-mail him at [email protected].