I'm Only Here for the WiFi

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Authors: Chelsea Fagan
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guy.” This isn’t to say that we should all resign ourselves to the slippery descent into going home at 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night and shooting judgmental looks at our friends who want to enjoy a tiny slice of nightlife before they wither and die, but it’s all about balance.
    And nothing helps strike that balance better than finding something constructive to do with your spare time. Speaking from personal experience, you may encounter friends or coworkers who regard your decision to join a dance group or go to language meet-ups or book clubs with more than a slight raise of the eyebrow.“What’s this?” they seem to gasp with flustered incredulity, monocle popping out and landing neatly in their champagne glass full of Coors Light. “You mean you actually have little activities you go to? How cute!” The truth is that as young adults we are just not acquainted with the concept of voluntarily signing up for shit that isn’t going directly on a college application or resume. What do you stand to gain, except possibly a noticeable dip in your checking account from monthly fees?
    In all honesty, you stand to gain a lot.
    We put huge premiums, when dating or seeking new friends, on people who are “cultured.” When setting up an OKCupid account, we know that we don’t want some toothless yokel who dislikes gay people on principle and has never left his hometown. But why don’t we want these things? If we’re being honest, we probably want someone who is able to expand our horizons and possibly teach us—I know, teach?! Us?!? But we’re the smartest people in the world!—something new. We want someone who is full of diverse interests and has filled his spare time with activities both enriching and challenging. Who wants to be with someone who is totally complacent in an unironic Dale from King of the Hill kind of way?
    And yet, we often don’t demand this of ourselves. We picture our ideal best friend or significant other, and imagine someone who is able to integrate seamlessly into every gathering, from a pretentious book release party filled with faux intellectuals andprofessors tenured enough to openly hit on their more attractive pupils, to a round of foosball in a dive bar in which every surface is inexplicably sticky. But are we able to do those things? Most likely the answer is no, even if we would describe ourselves on dating sites or on a first date as “pretty cultured.” No one wants to admit that a vast majority of her free time is spent giggling at the neckbeards on the MRA sections of Reddit and chilling out with their cats—it’s just not sexy.
    In order to break the cycle of no one actually doing anything interesting but everyone wanting someone with a little panache, we have to take the first step. And even if your motivation for signing up for that new club is specifically to sleep with higher and higher echelons of society, who cares? You’ll probably eventually get something more enriching or interesting out of the experience. You’ll meet people you would never have met in the dark recesses of a nightclub. And you’ll have something interesting to discuss at the next get-together among friends who are still firmly stuck in their Netflix-and–Chinese food quicksand. But you have to take that first step.
    Go online. Find meet-up groups. Ask a friend who is heavily involved in salsa dancing or her adult-education painting classes. Get over your fear of looking ridiculous by acknowledging that everyone looks as ridiculous as you in the beginner class. Invest the little bit of money it takes initially and understand that not every dollar you spend is going to buy somethingcompletely tangible. Be your own motivational poster. Become that insufferable asshole at work who is always doing something fun and interesting and meeting new people. You can do it.

L et’s go out. Are there any three words that

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