I’ve been wanting to write about the parties here for a while. They’re every weekend. I’m usually at one. All around South and West University there are a couple houses spilling over with people and many, many more just buzzing with people drinking, laughing, partying. Every weekend.
And the bars, too. Rennie’s, Taylor’s, Max’s – they’re all packed with college kids, every weekend.
This column is part of a three-story package that examines partying at the University. The first story attempts to capture the atmosphere of a party, Beer Fest. The second examines the health effects of binge drinking and offers help for people who need it. This column asks why.
Why do we do this? Why do we sacrifice health and time playing absurd games and getting drunk off cheap beer? The players at Beer Fest did it for the reasons they said themselves: Because after a week of classes, and after all the pressure and stress of living and working, the irrationality and the camaraderie made it worthwhile. And it was fun, it really was.
Maybe that’s what makes it worthwhile for the thousands who go to the bars and parties. Maybe the players played and parties are full because they can’t teach fun in class. Maybe we endanger ourselves looking for good times because it’s sad that we’re all gonna die some day. Of course, some of us go because we go every weekend and it’s just what we do. Some of us go because we can abandon our inhibitions and responsibility for our actions. Hell, maybe we all go for our own reasons and I’ve got serious delusions of grandeur trying to figure it all out.
But here’s what I’m thinking. I think we get together and get stupid because of the immense and wonderful sadness of living in a world that ends with all of us dying.
Parties are fun. It’s fun to get drunk and yell, to play stupid games and to kiss strangers. Why? Who knows why.
But there’s thousands of times when it hasn’t been fun.
There’s the times, in the dark rooms, when she couldn’t defend herself. Maybe she was you. Maybe she was your mother, or your sister, or your best friend or your girlfriend.
And what about the time when the wrong guy heard the wrong thing and swung at your face? What about the times he has a knife or a gun?
What about when somebody goes to a party, gets drunk and tries to drive home? What about when you get in the way of the car?
But we still go. We’ve always gone. Sometimes it’s bad. It can be really boring, too. And sometimes it’s really just a lot of fun. Beer Fest was fun, fun for the players but also fun to cover. But who knows what will happen to the players, who knows what will happen to any of us? The future is just so unknowable.
Maybe that’s the reason we go. Because it’s impossible to know what will happen outside the door, and inside, with friends, with drinks, we can try and feel happy, try remember the good and forget the bad, even just for a little while.