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It’s lonely at the top

My apartment finally reaches adulthood

Third year, at least for those not born over the summer, revolves around the number 21. Before the nostalgic bucket-list marathon of fourth year, third year brings 21st birthday season in all its glory.

There are only a handful of significant birthdays in life, and 21 is when you’ve truly made it. Unless you are desperate to be able to rent a car at 25 or compete for the oldest living human at 120, no birthday will be this important again. More significantly, it is one of the rare opportunities in life — other than New Year’s — to count down to midnight, take a shot of disgusting Aristocrat tequila and explode into an off-tune rendition of the worst song ever written.

Since I’m relatively old for my grade, my own celebration came on a Friday last November. On the day before my birthday, I followed the tradition and nervously asked a woman at the ABC store if the day-before rule is real, which turned out to be so. Since I am five months older than the rest of my roommates, after that initial weekend, I did not have many opportunities for of-age activities besides wandering around the beer aisle confidently.

I experienced this age segregation from the younger side when I lived with fourth years during my second year at the University. Many nights began with heated games of Cards Against Humanity — which, for the record, I usually dominated — but ended with my roommates filing out to bars as I sulked in my room and watched TV.

This strange age segregation has always reminded me of the argument made against lowering the drinking age to 18, which says a then-legal section of high schoolers would corrupt younger people. There is no meaningful difference between the lifestyles of 20-year-olds and 21-year-olds in college, but those who are 21 have an exclusive place to hang out on Friday nights. Everyone else is pressured to make a choice between hanging out with people in the same age bracket or breaking the law.

As a result of this stratification, the fact that most of my friends are underage basically makes me underage. While being the oldest person in my apartment does give me a certain measure of pride, being able to look down on my roommates is only entertaining for so long. Plus, having some company at bars would be nice.

Fortunately, the next month brings a rapid succession of birthdays in my apartment. This month, four of my five roommates turn 21 — three have birthdays within a week of each other and two have birthdays on the same day. The apartment will finally have a new status quo. Discussions have already begun on whether it is practical to install a full-time bartender in our common room or, more realistically, to replace our kitchen table with a regulation beer pong table.

If nothing else, 21st birthdays remove an annoying restriction from college life. While college is more adult-like than what came before it, I’ve always felt like a big theme of the first few years is being told you are an adult without being treated like one. There is a big difference between the fourth-year apartment and what precedes it, and the coming month will be a taste of the year to come.

Christian’s column runs biweekly Fridays. He can be reached at c.hecht@cavalierdaily.com.

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