Tears for Beers

Emmy called me last night, inviting me to a friend's housewarming party.

I'm thinking a small get together with hor d'oeuvres and wine or something. We get there a little early and find our college age hosts dressing up in go go boots and skimpy underwear. Turns out they forgot to mention (or Emmy forgot) that this was a housewarming slash Lingerie Party.

Within a very short time, there's a couple of dozen people in boxers or baby dolls, Hip Hop blaring from the speakers, Beer Pong in one corner and some drinking game called Kings Clubs or something going on in the other one.

Everyone eventually joined that one, sitting in a circle around a pitcher of beer. Me, I sat on the couch in the background nursing some hard liquor and reading a horror novel on my Back From the Dead Kindle- 'Heart Shaped Box' by Joe Hill, who is actually Stephen King's son. It's been a great read so far; I recommend it.

I occasionally took a break to watch the antics, young adults starting to get drunk and randy, laughing, yelling, dancing. These people were around my age, but that's where the similarities seemed to end.

These guys probably lead typical upper-middle class teenage years, going to parties in high school, getting drunk, not caring about much more than hanging out with friends and getting laid, and this is where its lead them. This is what normal, popular kids my age DO. And I felt this huge gulf between me and everyone else here, even Emmy and her shy, quiet friend, who had both joined in, too.

It was more than just the TG thing, though I'm sure that's part of it. Things like this have just never been my scene, probably because growing up I was excluded from them and learned to find pleasure in more solitary intellectual pursuits. Even Emmy's insistence for me to join couldn't extract me from my couch-bound bubble.

I sort of realized then that my 20's were fleeting pretty quickly, and that I'd probably never really get into scenes like this before I was too old for them. I added more things to my mental list of missed life experiences, feeling a little sad about the whole thing.

...The stiff drink helped a little with that, though.