What Your Gap Year Says About You

You never quite fit in in high school because you were pretty raunchy and audacious compared to your reserved and basic classmates who wore American Eagle and listened to Maroon 5. You were also a handful for your teachers and parents, so they suggested a gap year. You chose to go to Europe because you've always fancied yourself as worldier than others. Going to Europe sounds trés chic, and no one back in the states has to know that it consisted of you drinking double vodka Red Bulls and getting fingerbanged in public.  And when you say you're "worldly," are you referring to the times you made out with girls for attention and did body shots in sophisticated cities that are renowned for their rich culture and elegance? 

You technically went abroad to take classes, but your attendance record was poor and you didn't learn a single thing. You then went on to college (and you accidentally keep calling it "university"  because that's what they call it abroad!), where you would constantly whine about how you used to party way harder across the pond and how underwhelming college is. You would complain about how you miss the British boy charm, which really is just having an accent and telling you you look like a Spice Girl as a pick up line, and they're really no more enchanting than the frat and finance boys who hit on you. Initially your bitching and moaning made you come off as chic and cultured, but when you were forced to converse with an exchange student, you looked like an asshole because you couldn't name a museum, monument, or anything about the high brow culture of Europe. Oh well. College was not really your thing, just like high school never was. Like the PG kid, you probably had to take another gap year because you partied a bit too much and acted like an irresponsible fuckwit since your gap year never quite helped you mature. 

Eventually you moved to a more cosmopolitan area, where you work at a party girl job, like event planning or in media at somewhere like Guest of a Guest. You still use that drunken sloppy threesome from over half a decade ago to show how open minded you are when you're flirting with a guy, but really it was the most awkward experience of your life and you still won't even try anal. By your mid-twenties, you finally learned how to make friends through healthy channels like having similar values and intimate, meaningful conversations instead of bonding over a shared passion for partying, narcissism, and self destruction. You no longer cite your gap year in Europe as a reference point for everything, except to justify your day drinking habit, drinking rosé when it's not summer, or why you took your sweet, sweet time graduating college. So you're still pretty crazy, but you're "haha" crazy instead of "Jesus fucking Christ, what is this chick's deal?" crazy but you're starting to figure out how to be an adult. 

And how do I know this? Because I took my gap year in Europe. Suck it, bitches. 

[Photo via @thylaneblondeau]