It wasn’t for a lack of trying that my Friday evening was empty. I took every necessary precaution the night before — a flier to some “bratrager” was screenshotted, friends were texted and I had three boys on Snapchat accounted for as a final line of defense. 

And yet, there I was, strewn across my couch on a Friday afternoon. In a disastrous stroke of bad luck, my friends were each unavailable, and at some nefarious secret conference, the boys on Snapchat unanimously decided to leave me on delivered.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

Shit.

I had at some point been taken by the notion that Friday nights bear special significance in placing one’s self-worth, that the two acceptable options for spending a Friday night are either at a party or hooking up with an attractive partner. On occasion, a wine night with friends is acceptable. What wasn’t acceptable on any occasion was spending a Friday night alone.

I didn’t always feel this way. I remember a period during my sophomore year when I had both the self-knowledge to discern exactly what I wanted to do with my Friday night and the esteem to say no to anything else. Sometimes, this meant going out, but usually, I stayed in to play video games or work my way through a novel.

It was last fall — a uniquely difficult semester — when the idea that I was living life “wrong” slipped in through the backdoor of my mind. On lonely Saturday afternoons I became increasingly mesmerized by the Instagram Stories of loose acquaintances capturing every highlight of their night before. 

I was particularly affected by the social media activity of those I found attractive. I recall a sense of decisive defeat as I imagined their lives to be perfect — they partied while I sat alone, they picked from a line of eager suitors as I toiled over one uninterested man and, somehow, they were posting internship announcements on LinkedIn while I wrote email apologies for turning in assignments late. Being the problem-solver I am, I resolved to fix the problem that I believed was my life. 

I didn’t have a quota on how many parties I needed to go to or the sex I should be having. All I went off of was a hollowness that suggested wherever I was at wasn’t enough. On Halloweekend, I went out Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That Monday, I felt stupid and just as empty as before.

I’ve had a long year since. I turned 21 and finally started going beyond USC. Brat summer came and set my expectations even higher (I now apparently needed a quota for cocaine). Through it all was the awkward sense that I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to do the whole thing right, no matter how close I got.

I might have continued, but brat summer ended rather abruptly at the loss of a close friend. As it happens, partying isn’t on my short list of favorite grief activities. So it was in my quiet solitude where the novel “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and the game “Baldur’s Gate 3” kept me in a kind of cheerful company I hadn’t known in too long. 

My journey was personal, but speaking to other students, my impression is that USC’s social scene can be difficult for anyone more introverted or going through a hard time.

Liv Bohler, a senior majoring in communication, recounted the time she pushed herself to go on a hostel-hopping spring break trip across Europe despite her lower social battery. 

“Ideally, that [trip] would work for me, and I would have been able to do that,” Bohler said. “But even [traveling] with my best friend ever, [under] the best circumstances and experiencing very beautiful countries … I was exhausted for weeks.”

Graham Wynn, a junior majoring in cinema and media studies, explained that he’s more inclined to play video games at home than go out, though he does occasionally feel the pull to attend certain events. 

“What’s really important is I’m happy in those moments,” Wynn said. “I’m not really feeling like I’m missing out on something.”

I found the simplicity in Wynn’s statement profound. Considering it, the lesson behind my journey this year becomes blindingly obvious. In believing I would prefer that everyone think I was happy than actually experience happiness, I missed the point. In believing I could compare my lived human experience to an imagined idea, I missed the point. In believing, for any reason, that someone’s life carries more inherent value than mine, I missed the point. 

I write this on a Friday night because I enjoy writing. Right now, I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything.

Kevin Gramling is a senior writing about his search for meaning amid the daily chaos of being a USC student. His column, “The (S)existentialist,” runs every other Monday.