What does adventure mean to you? Sure, there are action movies, and since this is Stanford, maybe you’ve done something really cool like climb Mount Everest. But more basically, adventures are exercises in trying something new — taking risks, learning from what happens.

Sometimes, things go great. Once, on a whim, I tried out for a musical by singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It turned out they were desperate for male bodies to fill space, so they cast me and I got to pretend to be talented. Other times, pain ensues. Like when I tried the gallon challenge with several freshman hallmates. Everyone lost, even the milk. But it was still worth doing once.

Painful or awesome, an adventure is something you remember — a piece of your life that makes you who you are. My first real adventure happened in Italy when I was 15. And it was a disaster.

Armed with my English/Italian dictionary and a naive conception that I was pretty cool, I left my parents in their hotel and sought out the Italian nightlife. There wasn’t much nightlife, as we were in a small coastal area, but I was optimistic.

On the train ride from my hotel to one of the more happening villages, it took me about five seconds to decide what my goal should be for the evening: talk to girls. It was what any self-respecting, cool 15-year-old boy would do while on his own in Italy. Thus I spent the remainder of the short train ride trying to learn a good line in Italian, which I figured would impress other Americans at the very least, and perhaps charitable Italians. I settled on something along the lines of “Good evening, gee the moon sure is pretty tonight.” Charming, right?

My plans derailed faster than USC’s hopes for a national championship. I went to a small bar where I saw a few young people, and, hoping to be even cooler holding a drink, I ordered a Coke. The skinny bartender looked confused, and then disgusted when I confirmed I truly wanted just a Coke. I was fifteen after all. Her disdain burned long after our 25 second interaction. It took me an hour of walking alone in circles in a nearby plaza to regain enough confidence to pursue my original plan of talking to people I didn’t know.

Finally, I spotted a young looking tourist who was also wandering the beachfront alone. “Bona sera,” I began, adrenaline racing. But before I could finish, she interrupted, saying “I don’t speak Italian,” in a very un-charmed way. Perhaps it was because I didn’t make it to the moon.

Matters became worse when I asked her age and found out she was 23, nearly a decade older. I lied and said that I was 17, but for some reason it didn’t help. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I was traveling with my parents.

Though I soon gave up, my Italian night out was more than just teenage awkwardness. I apologize if you’ve already heard this in a commencement speech or while listening to peer pressure, but staying inside all the time doesn’t accomplish anything. You have to put yourself in a position to embrace the unexpected. Without taking a chance, putting your dignity on the line, reciting a silly Italian phrase, all you can do is wonder what might have happened.

Sometimes things won’t work out, and you’ll wish you had just gone to bed. My favorite BBC story in recent weeks is that of a man in Australia who is recovering after he was sequentially bitten by a crocodile, and then shot by someone who was trying to save him from the crocodile. According to the BBC, both shootings and crocodile attacks are rare in Australia. Does the guy wish he hadn’t decided to visit the reptile farm that day? Maybe, but he’s got one hell of a story, and probably learned a lot about crocodiles.

There will always be times when you have to finish the problem set or sleep, and that’s fine. But if you don’t allow yourself the chance to have adventures, you simply won’t. “Twenty years from now,” wrote Mark Twain, “you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”

Besides, the debacles are just as memorable.

Are you an Italian woman who likes adventures and looking at the moon? Email Michael at mjwilkerson@gmail.com