Chapter Fourteen: Party Sceptic (~jinghan)

Note from author: and yet again I could not help putting up two posts xD I’ll try and keep this one short (ish…)

I wasn’t big on parties.

It may be been because of that time I went to a production after-party and after giving up fighting for attention with all the actors (I had been a  stage-crew member) spent my time moping on the couch, hoping someone would come over and ask me how I was or something. No such luck. Everyone else was so busy having a good time that I was as good as invisible.

Experience also taught me that one is also as good as invisible when you’re sober and most of the other people are at least tipsy. I drink wine for the taste, but I tell people that my liver is too lazy of any other sort of alcoholic indulgence, plus I can dance rather crazily without the help of alcohol. On the contrary, actually, when I have had a glass of wine people accuse me of being tipsy when I dance, and I feel more self-conscious.

Anyway, so when a friend I had met on a camp several weeks back, and had run into on campus a few times, sent out a facebook message asking me to her 18th birthday party, I barely read the message. But as the date drew nearer, other people replied to the message making excuses or expressing their excitement, and the message was brought to my attention again.

I had no excuse.

So while I was busy trying to think up an excuse that I wouldn’t feel bad using, I noticed how small the list of recipients to the message was. And the fact that it was a message not an event made it that much harder for me to just click the “ignore” button. (If I were ever to host a party, I would most certainly not just create a facebook event and leave the rest to fate.) It was an unobtrusive friday night party so, I decided that I would go after all.

Just for a little while.

I hadn’t been to a party since uni started, and it seemed like it was something I should experience at least once. At least there was one person that I knew who would be there.

Until he got sick and had to have his appendix taken out.

“Hey, are you going to J*’s party?” I ask a friend of a friend’s who is the next closest thing to someone I know who might be going to the party.

“Uh no, actually, I was asked, but I’m not free. Matt’s going though. ”

Every second guy at uni is called Matt. Actually… I thought this friend of a friend’s name was Matt… but it mustn’t have been…

As things would have it, as we head towards the tram stop, we run into said Matt. And I am vaguely introduced.

So when Friday night rolls around, this Matt is the only person whom I know is going to the party. I have no idea what sort of party it is. And it was raining very heavily. With less than 20 hours of experience on the road, driving in the rain and in the dark is a very fresh experience. But, in a way it took my attention from what would otherwise have been my dread of what this party would be like. Would I end up sitting on the fringe of conversations hoping for attention? Would everyone else know each other?

At least I can dance?

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but something along the lines of some big and loud affair. When I get to the place, it’s not what I expected at all. There is a note on the door to the block of apartments: “Dear neighbours, I am turning 18 and having a party. It is a small affair with 20 or so of my close friends. I hope you can understand, if you have any problems with this please feel free to contact me. This is just a once-off affair, after all one only turns 18 once.” And as I walked up the stairs whatever foreboding and assumptions I had come with were left at the door.

My present was accepted and loved. I made some interesting conversation. I got to know this Matt better. People drank. But Matt turned out to be a non-drinker – even more so than me. We played cards. No dancing, but I couldn’t help making a few dance moves now and then. My dance moves were (to my surprise) noticed and approved. And I was genuinely disappointed when my time to go home came about.

Yes, I have been a party sceptic since the time we grew out of the sober children’s-games sort of parties. But perhaps now that uni has started it is time I graduated from this perspective. I had many reserved about going to parties where I don’t know most of the people, but it seems parties are just as good as any other place to get to know people. Now I can’t wait to host my own birthday party with all the new friends that I have met in just the last few months, as well as all my old friends that I haven’t had as many chances to see recently. But since my birthday is still many months away, I have many other parties to look forward to before then. And I shall dread none of them!

*not the same J as in the last chapter, but certainly I know lots of people with names beginning with J, including myself.