Tag: parties

1090: Housewarming

Page_1Tonight Andie and I are hosting a housewarming party. We attempted to do this in the last house we moved into, but failed miserably at getting people to come, making it a rather quiet affair. (We did have some people, just nowhere near what we were hoping for!)

(Aside: If you are a friend of mine and in the Southampton area and were inexplicably left off the invites list on teh Facebookz, it was not intentional and you are welcome to come and join us — just drop me a text or a message via various forms of social media and let me know you’re coming.)

Anyway, yes. We are throwing a party. Now there’s a word that changes its meaning as you get older and, theoretically, wiser.

When you’re a kid, a “party” is a big deal, because it’s something well out of the ordinary and, usually, a celebration of an important event — typically a birthday. I remember going to a number of birthday parties for various kids in the village where I grew up, and it was always fun doing things like playing Pass The Parcel and that stupid game where you had to put on a scarf, hat, coat and gloves and then eat a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork. You know, that one. No? Just me? Damn rural upbringing.

Then you get to be a teenager, and a “party” is typically an illicit sort of affair where you take over the house and invite too many people around while your parents are away. I attended a few of these and threw one of my own that I got into a lot of trouble for and still feel somewhat guilty about to date. (It was an awesome party, though, to be fair.) The key thing here was the illicit nature of it, though — it was an occasion for teenagers to do things they weren’t supposed to do, like drink, smoke and… err, anything else that teenagers who weren’t me probably did. (I had a somewhat sheltered life.)

Then you get to university, and “parties” become acceptable again, though they tend not to be tied to a particular occasion. “[Insert name of person you barely know] is having a party tonight,” your housemate will say. “Want to go?” The correct response is, of course, “yes,” because undoubtedly there will be a ton of drink, possibly stuff to eat and, in the eyes of a horny late-teens-early-twenties person, the potential to get laid that inevitably never comes to anything. (Not that I’m complaining; I was never really the one-night stand type.) The thing with parties of this nature, though, is that they tend to have no real purpose — they’re purely social occasions designed to get people together, not a celebration of anything. They’re barely even a celebration of friendship, because inevitably there’ll be a bunch of people there who no-one seems to know, who will have showed up as a sort of “friend of a friend” arrangement.

There are exceptions to the above, of course — after-show parties from Theatre Group productions at university were always entertaining. I will never forget the one which coined the phrase “The Chair of Eternal Disappointment” and subsequently went on until well after sunrise, moving on from the original house party to a dirty, horrible beach on the banks of the river that we somehow found our way to. On said beach, we engaged in improvisatory theatre and then our friend Tom got his knob out before eating some dirty seaweed and commenting it “tasted of oil and poo”.

Then you leave university and enter the adult world, and parties tend to take on that air of vague respectability once again. Rather than being aimless, meaningless social occasions, they tend to revolve around a special event, much as they did in childhood. In our case, we’re celebrating our housewarming, but they’re also often thrown in celebration of the new year or someone’s birthday. In many ways, an adult party (not THAT kind of “adult party”) is a lot closer to the joyful exuberance of a child’s party than anything else, albeit with everyone usually behaving in a slightly more respectable manner than your average child.

The exception to the “special event” classification of adult (NO) parties is, of course, the “dinner party”, which isn’t really a “party” as such in that you’re not really celebrating anything. No, rather you’re just having people around for dinner, presumably in an attempt to show off your cooking skills and talk in a respectable, grown-up way around the dinner table before retiring to the living room to, I don’t know, listen to jazz or something. I’m not quite sure at what age you start having “dinner parties” but it doesn’t feel quite like something that’s “right” just yet. Do people even have “dinner parties” any more? The very concept of “dinner parties” feels like something from an Alan Ayckbourn play.

Anyway, there’s no real point to this post, I’m aware, I just wanted to write something before everyone arrived and starts eating the copious amounts of party food we have laid on for them. As I say, if you’re in the Southampton area, are free tonight and missed out on an invite (probably because I assumed you were no longer in the area) then feel free to show up and say hello — contact me for the address.

Now I’m off to gaze longingly at the bajillion cupcakes Andie’s made.

#oneaday Day 622: Party Smart

I may be voluntarily indicting myself into the “I am an old man now” club but I have come to the irrefutable conclusion that You Do Not Need Alcohol to Have a Good Time.

Well, duh, you might say. We’ve been told that for years. But how many people really believe it?

I’m speaking purely from my own perspective here as I’m more than aware that plenty of people use booze as a form of social lubricant prior to slipping their conversational penis into the Vagina of Meaningful Interactions. I’m saying it doesn’t really work for me.

I thought it did for a while. At University, as most people tend to do, I drank a lot, mostly out of a desire to be sociable and fit in — even with seeing a close friend suffer from (and, thankfully, subsequently beat) a drinking problem. I quickly confirmed my early suspicions that I didn’t like beer at all, which precluded me from most Student Night promotions, and instead opted for spirits or alcopops.

Even with those, however, I found I had an obvious “line” which, if crossed, would switch the night from being “entertainingly blurry” to “unpleasantly blurry”. Sometimes I crossed this line by accident with just one sip too many; others I was goaded and cajoled into it by the company I was with at the time; others still I, like a child in some ways, wanted to “test my limits”. The result was always the same, however; a kebab on the way home, a longer-than-average dump during which I’d often almost-but-not-quite fall asleep, a night of disturbed sleep wondering whether or not I’d be sick (to which the answer was usually “yes”) followed by a morning of being sick, barely being able to move and always taking a bin into the bathroom with me in case disaster struck while I was the wrong way around to puke in a manner which didn’t require cleaning up.

Despite the inevitability of the above scenario, I still continued to do it. Drinks of choice changed — vodka and Red Bull being a favourite for probably the longest, despite its ludicrous cost — but the presence of social occasions did not. Drinks down the pub after a session with a club. Monday nights at the local grotty nightclub following Theatre Club rehearsals. And, of course, the occasional house party.

I used to hate house parties, but I’d still go. Most of them tended to devolve into me finding my “line”, stopping just short of it and then spending the rest of the evening looking longingly across the room at some girl I’d arbitrarily decided that night that I fancied, and then didn’t go and talk to for fear of her thinking I was a dick, a perv or quite simply just someone she didn’t want to talk to.

In short, then, in a good 8-9 cases out of 10, alcohol didn’t particularly work as the social lubricant it’s sold as. A few half-hearted “woo, I’m so drunk!”s do not make for meaningful friendships and relationships, and as such I’m pretty sure that most of my aforementioned meaningful relationships and friendships started and were best cultivated when sober. Sure, there were times when I’d gone out, got drunk and had a great time with said people — but as time passed, these got less and less frequent, and the booze became less and less important.

When I finally left university and started work as a teacher, the demands of the job meant that for the most part I didn’t have time to drink, let alone the inclination. I dabbled with having a stiff G&T upon coming home from the first school in which I worked — which was a nightmarish shithole conjured up from between Satan’s very buttocks — but it didn’t particularly help with the growing feelings of stress and depression I had, and nor was I expecting it to. I had an occasional G&T because it was a nice drink in the summer, and it happened to be one of the few alcoholic beverages which I didn’t hate the taste of.

Fast forward to now and I haven’t drunk for quite some time, and I don’t miss it. The last few times I drank wine or vodka or gin, the taste was not something I enjoyed, and it felt like it “burned” on the way down, leaving me with a slight lingering feeling of unpleasantness after just one sip in many cases. Certainly it was enough to put me off a university-style binge, but it’s also pretty much enough to put me off it altogether. It’s unnecessary for me, it doesn’t particularly help me open up to people — though it does help me act like a dick, but then, I’m in no hurry to be the butt of everyone’s jokes for being wasted — and, in more cases than one, I’ve seen what it can do to people, and that’s not pleasant.

In short, then, I think I’m knocking it on the head. This isn’t a strict teetotal policy or anything but I’m certainly not going to seek out alcohol or feel pressured into it on social occasions.

I’ve been away this weekend and heard the phrases “you need to be drunk” or “you need to drink more” uttered several times. No you don’t. Or, more accurately, Idon’t. No-one needs to be drunk. No-one needs to drink “more”. You should be free to enjoy a drink if you enjoy it, but it should not be a necessity.

If this has come across as in any way sanctimonious, that certainly wasn’t the intention and I apologise — I’m simply saying how I feel about it and what works for me in this instance. I’m certainly not judging those who do enjoy a drink and know their limits — and equally, I’m not judging those who have a genuine problem and are taking steps to deal with it. Everyone’s different, after all. All I’m saying is this: if you’re socialising with me or at a party I’m throwing (haha, yeah, right) then have a drink or two by all means — just don’t expect (or, worse, demand) than I join you.

And don’t throw up on my carpet.