Belong,
don’t fit in.

Here’s the disconnect: drinking can look like the default college experience, even though it is not universal. In 2024, 53.4% of full-time U.S. college students ages 18 to 25 reported no alcohol use in the past month.⁶ Yet students often judge campus life by its most visible social scenes, not by the quieter majority looking for something different.

Seven in ten students think everyone drinks,⁵ when most students actually didn’t drink in the past month. The non-drinker looking for real connection therefore thinks he’s the minority, when he’s actually part of the majority. He just can’t see it, because the loud minority sets the image of what campus life is supposed to look like. The crowd is therefore fictitious, an artefact of the mind.

That leaves many students who want real connection, lower-pressure plans, or alcohol-free friendships feeling like they are the exception. They are not necessarily rare; they are often just hard to find.

And that invisibility matters. Loneliness is widespread among college students: 57% reported feeling lonely sometimes or always in a large 2024 student survey,² and when students feel lonely, that illusion can push them toward drinking to fit in.

Research following 591 students over a year also found that when students felt lonelier than usual, they were more likely to drink for coping, social, and conformity motives.⁸ For some students, drinking can therefore become a way to manage loneliness or gain entry into social life, not simply a preference.

Most students want what you want: real connection with people they actually relate to. The problem is that they’re all looking at the same distorted picture of campus and assuming everyone else is different.