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Last week was a whirlwind for me. Harvard-Yale on Saturday, my twenty-first birthday on Monday, and “Blackout Wednesday” in my hometown. I had an amazing time — all without a drop of alcohol.

Students complain about the lack of fun at Harvard. A lot. As much as I agree, I’ve come to realize most students actually seem to be talking about the lack of easy access to alcohol. Some even say this explicitly. As someone who has never hitherto imbibed, I think the key to having more fun at Harvard is learning to have fun without getting drunk. (And no, I don’t mean by smoking weed instead.)

Simply put, we don’t need alcohol to have fun, but we believe we do — and that misperception limits how much fun we have.

Think about it: When you’re planning what to do on any given weekend, you probably consider where you’ll be able to drink, ideally for free. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that. Live and let live. But when we implicitly turn that consideration into a requirement, it limits our options. There just aren’t many spaces at Harvard that meet that specification.

Don’t get me wrong, Harvard does have a fun problem. A workaholic student body combined with a dearth of inclusive third spaces makes it hard to have a good time. But we may have unrealistic expectations to begin with, and we only make the problem worse for ourselves by subscribing to the idea that alcohol is a necessity.

Essentially, our pessimistic attitude is helping to create the sorry social scene — not just the other way around.

As soon as freshmen arrive on campus, they are led to believe they have minimal options. They can go to the frats at MIT. They can try to finagle their way into a final club (near impossible, we are told, for the freshman boy). Or they can sit alone in their dorm. What would you choose?

However, it’s not just the number of venues that determines our attitude; our attitude also determines the number of (eligible) venues. We seem to have collectively decided that the only options worth considering are those with alcohol. But I don’t think that people need to drink as badly as they think they do.

Some people think the fact that I don’t drink means I dislike that other people do. I don’t. In fact, I find most people to be more social when they drink. Distant acquaintances and even strangers gain the urge to chat with me about all sorts of things: life, death, aliens, religion, selling out, and sports.

The tragic irony is that this friendliness almost always expires at the end of the night and isn’t revived the next day. It seems self-explanatory that people don’t have the same propensity to talk after class as they do at a party, but why?

I don’t think it has to be this way, because I don’t think people’s sociability actually comes from intoxication itself.

Instead, the mere presence of alcohol produces a sort of social contract. When people drink, they act friendly — not solely because they’re tipsy, but also because alcohol signals that it’s ok for everyone to let their guard down. Multiple studies have confirmed that people given a placebo report experiencing the same feelings as actually drinking alcohol — potentially because they’re around others. It seems alcohol’s social signalling aspect is at least as important as its actual psychoactive effect.

So, how can we have more fun if we’re not drinking? By simply changing our mindsets. Choose to have fun when you are sober. Revel in conversation with those around you. Dance like no one is watching. Do whatever it is that makes you happy. I promise you don’t need a red Solo cup in your hand to have fun.

Of course, there are several other good reasons not to drink — such as the facts that alcohol is literally poison, causes cancer, and is unsafe in any quantity — but I don’t want to be didactic.

Admittedly, my generation is more sober than previous ones, but combined with other trends of decreased socialization, that gives me little hope for the future of fun. Besides, young people seem to be turning to nicotine and marijuana instead. Ultimately, it doesn’t help if we simply replace one vice with another. We have to reconsider what constitutes fun altogether.

I’m well aware that there will be some who perceive me as un-fun. (This may be true, but it’s not because I don’t drink.) And that just goes to show that people equate fun with alcohol.

I’ve heard people say lately that everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager. If we want Harvard to have a more vibrant social culture, we all need to play our part. I offer the following compromise:

Sober people should party more — and party people should try being more sober.

Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Social Studies and Economics in Winthrop House.