The most anticipated season of the year arrives every late August. Thousands of people prepare months in advance; they take off work and travel hundreds of miles to be at LSU game days. College football is electric with fans, players and popular alumni who come to participate. It’s like a holiday celebration, a gift on Christmas morning. The country, or at least tiger fans, stop and stare at the state of Louisiana during college football. 

LSU’s campus is packed from sunrise to sunset. I myself am on campus bright and early on game days. One, because I like to be able to park, but also to avoid being the last to show up to the tailgate. The game is intense, and the stadium is always filled to the brim with fans. But I think the power of tailgating is underestimated. How much preparation would there be for games if tailgates were prohibited to a certain age group? The demographic varies, but I never thought about the appropriate representation of age during an event like tailgating until recently. 

Speaking from my own experience, did I get a late start on the tailgating bandwagon?  Maybe, but that’s nobody’s judgment to call but mine. I will point out the significant relationship between age and tailgating. I see men, women and couples who are significantly older than the students come with the whole nine yards. The RVs, tents, anything you can imagine a person would need from home to camp out on campus for 24 hours. 

I love game days and celebrating my school. Seeing so many people with positive experiences wanting to come back and reignite their school spirit is so connecting and wholesome. However, I was recently presented with a question that daunted me days after. 

Would I be embarrassed if my partner, post-college, went all out for a college football tailgate? I responded immediately with yes. I didn’t even think that was something I would have to consider for myself in a relationship. But the ratio of boomer tailgate goers compared to the students and millennials is really close. 

This question was presented to me by a man, and as women, we can see the mass ratio between men and women on game days. For men, it’s important to show up for their favorite team. Don’t get me wrong, my mother, sister, nieces and I will all show up for a good time no matter what. It’s undeniable to ignore the fact that you will see men of a significant age covered in merch, swag bags and even LSU furniture.  

I want to support my school’s extracurriculars as much as any other student involved. But when you graduate and prepare for life outside of who you were in college, you should have a separate sense of self. 

Going to every home game, renting out parking spots, spending close to hundreds, maybe even thousands, to be surrounded by even younger, carefree college students shouldn’t be your most anticipated time of the year, especially as my partner. It’s almost ingenuine to your adult self to want to fit in a place you’ve grown out of. 

You put up with what you have to in order to satisfy certain areas in your partner’s life. You are a representative of each other. You might have lived separate lives even in college. You can bleed and honor the colors of LSU the way it does for attendees during and post-college. But if my partner can write off the tailgate expenses on their taxes, it’s time to reevaluate that lifestyle.

Blair Bernard is a 21-year-old theater performance major from Lafayette, La.