I was going to make this a blog post, but then I realized...yeah, people I know read that, gonna have to reign it in.
To put some things into perspective - I've never drank or done any sort of recreational drug, and I don't plan on doing it any time soon.
So if you are good with context clues by looking at my presence on Hubski, you'll know that I'm A) Ridiculously anti-social (or as people like to say incorrectly to feel better about themselves, "introverted", and B) I've never been to a party in my life. Well that's not entirely true, there was that time, what, Sophomore year of High School, but I don't count it because I only stayed for 15 minutes.
I've been told many times that I avoid parties because I'm being purposefully contrarian - that I'm looking down on the people that have them. Yup, it's totally that, and not crippling social anxiety when it comes to people I've never met before. Nope, definitely not that.
That being said, I don't really get the point. My idea of a party is 9-10 of us playing Super Smash Bros/Munchkin and eating junk food.
But I decided, whatever, I'll go to this girl's birthday party because she's incredibly persistent about me going, and kinda cute. Fine, whatever.
So I get to this giant house at 10PM, which is already way past my bedtime. I knock, nobody answers, so I open the door and realize the reason no one was answering was because the music was really, really loud. Way too loud for 10PM, but I digress. The girl who invited me emerges from a sea of sweaty, shot-taking bodies to greet me. She's, like, saying things, but the music playing was at the exact volume that lets you hear syllables people are making, but not enough to understand what they're saying.
"Hey, 8-Bit, glad you could come!" she says.
"I'm not!" That's what's great about the super loud music, you can pretty much say whatever you want and everyone has to just sorta nod and smile. She introduces me to people I'm never going to see again.
"So this is [Interchangeable Sorority Name], [Interchangeable Sorority Name], and [Interchangeable Sorority Name]!"
"I have already forgotten who you are!"
"And this is my boyfriend, Alex!"
This is going so well right now.
So after that I do what I normally do in these situations, which is lean against a wall and pretty much morph into it like a shadow. This is actually usually more enjoyable than many would think, because I get to people-watch. But in this instance that wasn't really the case. The more I stood around with these people, the more I realized I had nothing in common with any of them. A bunch of wealthy white kids drinking crap-tons of alcohol. Sorority girls dropping the n-word in the most disingenuous way possible while singing to mediocre rap songs. Standing around, talking, but not really saying anything because they're wasted.
I'm not really judging the way they do things. There's just such a massive disconnect, it's like I'm not even on the same planet as them. And I get it, "you need alcohol to cope with, you know, the people you love," (Simon Amstell), but it's really fascinating to me how much alcohol has to be a part of the college experience for it to be any fun. Is it something you pick up before college starts? Did I just miss that in High School because I was too busy, I dunno, doing whatever it is I did in High School?
I feel like - and I'm not trying to say this to be dramatic - with all the stuff I've been through, I didn't really have a party phase. It was wrung out of me through all the responsibility I got from a relatively young age. I have to be in control 100% of the time, and that makes it difficult for me to be "in the moment." I guess that's that's what the inebriation is for.
I dunno. Either way I left the party very early, and relatively upset, without really knowing why. And then I wanted to write my experience down, without really knowing why either.
But yeah. I went to a party, 0/10 would not do again.