Eavesdropping on undergrads isn’t a hobby, really, just a by-product of working at Penn.

As a point of fact, half the stories I overhear on campus start or end with some variation of: “I was so drunk.” This is often offered as an excuse or explanation for behavior that is ridiculous, rowdy, embarrassing, or — I’ll grant you this — occasionally hilarious.

But it turns out you can’t blame your especially enthusiastic Soulja Boy routine on Coors Light alone.

In a series of studies in the 1970s and 1980s, students were given — over the course of about an hour — either five icy tonic waters or five vodka tonics, without knowing which was which. The results?

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Recent findings by a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism study: Students with a history of binge drinking and who play drinking games tend to have higher blood-alcohol content at parties.

Well, duh.

Here’s something less obvious: not only is there more drinking at “themed parties,” but women actually out-drink men at such events.

The study, “Person and Environment Predictors of Blood Alcohol Concentrations: A Multi-Level Study of College Parties,” has been hailed because researchers actually ditched the office and, Dianne Fossey-style, tracked college students in their natural habitat: They followed 1,300 partygoers around 66 parties at San Diego State University, testing attendees’ blood-alcohol content on the spot. Assuming the researchers didn’t kill the mood with white coats and clipboards — unless it was a “dress like a scientist” theme party — it’s a stronger methodology than asking students to ‘fess up about their drinking habits days or weeks later (the traditional strategy).

One of the big conclusions: do away with drinking games, say the authors, since they cause dangerous amounts of alcohol to be consumed too quickly. The authors also claim to be testing “interventions” hosts can use to cut drinking games. Like… not having a party in the first place.

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