Over the course of my four years in college, I've given day drinking an earnest, honest-to-God attempt.
I've woken myself up with shots of cherry-flavored vodka at 8 am on Marathon Monday, the annual holiday in Boston in which hundreds of college students get drunk and cheer on Boston Marathon runners.
I've celebrated a St. Patrick's Day that fell on a Saturday by chugging beers, running around in a green crop top and eating drunk pizza at 2 PM.
I Spring-Breaked my way through Cancun during my senior year, drinking Tequila Sunrises at 10 am and getting thoroughly intoxicated before lunchtime for a week straight.
Each night before I know I'm going to day drink, I psych myself up and convince myself it'll be a great time. I excitedly snuggle into bed like a kid on Christmas Eve and think about how in 12 hours or less, I will be drunk, and it will be amazing.
Well, if only I could think of the more realistic outcome instead, which is that I will be drunk, and it will be amazing for about an hour, and then I will want to die.
Yes, I've come to realize I actually really, really, really hate day drinking. Here's why.
I'm not in the drinking mindset during the day
When the sun is up, the last thing I want is to feel gross and groggy and poisoned by booze. I want to feel clean and fresh. I want to eat salads and be responsible and engage in self-care activities.
I'd much rather go out at night. There's something about the sun going down that makes me feel like a wilder, looser, more energized version of myself. At night, I'm down to get weird, so to speak.
And this mindset -- the unhealthy, gross mindset that allows me to rip shots of nasty-flavored vodka and drunk eat fattening foods -- is so much more fun for me.
It's never JUST day drinking
If day drinking were just day drinking, perhaps I'd enjoy it more. But every time I've engaged in day drinking, the people I day drink with always expect me to rally at night to go out and drink more, as if a short, two-hour nap around dinnertime is enough to revive me for a whole other drunken stupor.
Call me a little bitch, but I need a full night's sleep to revive myself from drinking. I also don't believe in the hair of the dog, so drinking more when I'm hungover (which I inevitably will be after I wake up from a nap) will do nothing except make me feel terrible.
It f*cks with my sleeping schedule
When I day drink, I fall asleep at 7 pm and wake up at 3 am. And then my whole body is thrown off for the rest of the day -- or even the week. Awful.
The hangover is always worse
Day drinking produces the worst hangovers. It's too early to go to sleep for the whole night, so you can't fully rest off the alcohol.
And even if you do go to sleep for the whole night, you'll wake up at an ungodly hour, and your slumber will not have actually been restful (see my third point).
Plus, normal people start going out when your hangover is just arriving, so you just seem crabbier in comparison to their energy and optimism for the evening.
There's no excuse for a "one-day stand"
With a one-night stand, you have an excuse. You can tell yourself that the platypus lookalike you boned was cloaked by the night. The darkness made you do it.
But you have no excuse with a one-day stand. You saw that platypus lookalike in the broad daylight, and you still went for it. Embarrassing.
There's also no excuse for a drunk text
There's nothing that says "my life is falling apart" more than sending a drunk text to your ex at 3 pm. Because it's the middle of the day, he won't think your unintelligible confession of your feelings is a result of you being drunk -- he'll just think you're being pathetic.
There's no anticipation to heighten the excitement of drinking
The anticipation to get drunk is one of the best parts of drinking.
Day drinking starts so early that it gives me no time to actually get excited about the fact that I'm going to drink -- there's no real buildup, no real chance to have a bad day that I know I can make better with a drink or two.
Craving a drink and having to wait until nighttime for it makes the experience that much better.
Sunburn is guaranteed
Drinking alcohol makes your skin extra sensitive to the sun, so day drinking will give you a nasty sunburn. It's not worth the skin cancer.
You're never as cute as you think you are
When you're drunk at night, so is everyone else. You have an excuse to be a loud, boisterous weirdo, and you may even look cute while doing it.
But when you're drunk during the day, there are definitely going to be people around you who are not drunk and who will 100 percent find you annoying.
