Student Life: A Hedonist's Guide

“There’s plenty of time for boys after you graduate.” My mother would always say; blithely optimistic that I would hunker down and study dead authors while live specimens rampaged around me tipping double absinthe shots down their glorious throats. Perhaps I should explain that the student union bar was my chosen venue for writing those all important essays.

What she clearly didn’t realise is that there is never “plenty of time” for anything. These post-student days, I struggle to correctly coordinate my curls in the morning these days and still make it in time for the 23 bus! And, oddly enough, my boss strongly discourages me from taking time off work to “catch up” on all the 18 year olds I didn’t get to have when I was 18. Indeed, she’s become quite hostile and insistent on this point.

But it’s easy to blame your parents; perhaps it was my own fault. When I was a child I used to carefully eat all my peas first, and then dutifully scoop up my mashed potato, before allowing myself to advance onto the heavenly realms of the fried chicken. I now see this as damningly significant. It’s called delayed gratification. Life is full of misguided people who ascribe to this bizarre concept.

Perhaps you’re one of those people? You buy gloriously frilly or barely existent underwear and then promptly place it in your drawer saving them for the day when you entrance a likely looking lad/ladette into being your boy/girlfriend/fling/non-platonic friend? (Delete as applicable).

What are you waiting for?! Those knickers are for you, not them! Wear them! Wear them under your tracksuit bottoms! Wear them to watch Eastenders! Wear them to do the gardening! Wear them and wear nothing else! Treat yourself! Treat your neighbours!!

Men: try changing your boxer short everyday and not just on public holidays. You should wear your Calvins for your own peace of mind and bottom - and not just for your intended victims. You must convince yourself that you deserve better than wearing the same boxers for days on end, and then turning them inside out to get some extra mileage…

This brings me neatly back to student life; appreciate it while you can! There are some things you simply can’t do when you’re no longer a student. The post-student world has its own lesson to teach and none of them include tie dying. Instead, you learn how to not scream and shout on the back of buses and become adept at selecting tasteful clothes in muted sophisticated tones. Your quivering hand mournfully puts down deliciously trashy copies of the NME and reaches for Q magazine instead. You walk down the streets in pairs rather than rowdy groups of eight and you become very good in bed. In fact you become positively angelic in bed as you find you have to travel to distant night clubs for your entertainment rather than simply bothering your unfortunate neighbours in your mixed halls of residence.

Frankly, these adult lessons are simply not worth learning.

“But we’re poor!” you shriek, “We become vegetarians only because even value packs of own brand chicken wings are too expensive!" Yes, you’re poor but you’re all poor in this together. It is the one time in your life when poverty is lent an idealistic, noble glow and actually promotes comradeship. You can whine about prices together or proudly exclaim “It’s £1 a pint – student night – let’s go!” Try doing that past age 30 and watch eyes roll like bowling balls.

Of course, the money issue was lesser in my student days. In fact, back then, the real struggle started when you left university. Banks complacently assumed that all undergraduates would somehow become rich. They imagined this even if you were studying fine art and would cheerfully extend your student overdraft so you could buy nice, glittery tiaras! But things changed somewhat after graduation... Well, you try, sitting there in paint splattered dungarees eagerly explaining the overwhelming need in the world for exhibitions of your mathematic aberrations (numbers and squiggly lines on huge canvases). All you’re asking for is money for some more indigo paint! Your banking advisor will appear amazingly disengaged and although she will claim to be happy to discuss numbers they won’t be the pretty, pastel ones on your canvases.

Make sure you don’t neglect your studies; I didn’t and it enriched my world. I immersed myself in literature and became skilled at gleaning new interpretations from old texts. “Why,” I wondered, “should I sit here, head between a dusty book on Keats when the esteemed poet is clearly urging me to value southern alcohol, urns and beautiful people? Surely I am letting him down by being so bookish?” So I promptly snapped my poetry book shut and obediently went to the bar to appreciate all the cute guys, while they still had their looks. He had a point: all beauty must die. Sure enough, some of the men I fancied in university had already lost their looks and locks when I bumped into them a couple of years afterwards. I thank Keats that I sampled at least some of them prior to their Best Before dates expiring!

So do not delay gratification. Yes, there’s economic gloom and an uncertain future - but you have priceless youth on your side. Think of your student days as being the chicken on your plate! Life is cuttingly short; enjoy all the meaty bits while you can. If the world unexpectedly ends it’s likely that you won’t regret having neglected those piddly peas, but missing out on that succulent chicken will cause inconsolable grief!