Bidding
a fond farewell to frat parties
Mac
Levine
You
walk into a frat party.
The
first thing that hits you
is the smell. It’s that odd mixture
of sweaty feet, bad body odor and stale
beer.
Then
you look around the party. The dance floor
is dark and steamy. The hottest new hip-hop
track blasts from the speakers as indiscernible
mobs of rhythm-less college students attempt
to dance to the beat and mouth along to
the lyrics. Couples are “grinding”
all around you, groping each other like
their plane is going down and they have
five minutes to live.
The
line at the bar is 20-deep for a warm, foamy,
half a red cup’s worth of Keystone
Light. The line could go faster, but the
guys behind the bar are clearly relishing
their role as bartender/master of the universe.
Your ability to secure a soothing alcoholic
beverage lies in their hands, and they know
it.
After
10 minutes of waiting, you finally get a
cup. Then there are two choices: pound the
beer and be forced to immediately wait on
line again; or try to nurse the beer and
sip slowly until some hammered idiot inevitably
bumps into you and knocks the beer out of
your hands.
Hopefully
you didn’t go out that sober. Anyone
who’s ever been to a frat party knows
you can’t get drunk at one. Getting
your hands on a drink is such a painstaking
process that you’ll soon get more
disgruntled than a postal worker if you
arrive sober.
Pre-gaming
is an absolute necessity unless you have
the tolerance of a 12-year-old and the patience
of the Dalai Lama.
As
you would do at any gathering, you walk
around a frat party upon arrival. You do
a lap and mingle. Find your friends and
scout the scene. Spot that dime-piece from
your section, whom you spent 50 minutes
staring at just one day earlier. Make small
talk and kick some of your foolproof A-game.
Maybe you bring your most talented wingman
into battle with you for support.
Almost
everyone around you is choosing among the
same basic options. It’s been a long
week chock-full of tests, papers, jobs,
games and meetings. It’s time to let
loose.
As
the night goes on, the inhibitions go down.
The party may be getting more crowded by
the minute, but hopefully your mind is elsewhere
because you’re chilling with friends.
Ultimately,
the police will converge on the party and
treat it like a raid on a crack house in
Compton. The deejay may get a chance to
play one last song if you’re lucky,
giving you the chance to track down that
girl or guy that you’re sure was throwing
you some crazy vibes earlier in the night.
Either
way, the party will soon end and you’ll
stumble home to pass out in your bed —
or, if you’re lucky, in someone else’s
bed.
After
four years of college, nights like these
inevitably blend together to form one giant
haze of memories, or lack thereof. Soon,
dozens of parties are whittled down to a
foggy melange of drunken revelry.
Did
you hook up with that girl in your IHUM
section at Sigma Chi’s Cowabunga party,
or was it at SAE’s Jungle Party? Did
you go home with that guy after Kappa Sig’s
Foam Party, or were your pants really frothy
in the morning for some other reason?
If
you join a fraternity like I did, your view
of frat parties definitely changes over
the years. And if you have ever been a social
chair, as I was, your opinion changes even
more as you grow to appreciate all of the
time and energy needed to set up a party
that will ultimately resemble the streets
of Baghdad in the morning.
Maybe
you stopped going to frat parties after
freshman year. Maybe you never went at all.
Odds are, though, if you enjoy going out
at night then you’ve been to your
fair share of frat parties along the way.
One thing’s for sure: If you’ve
attended a bunch over the years, the deer-in-the-headlights
feeling is definitely gone by senior year
— you become a wily veteran of such
soirees. I know I have.
Four
years ago, I remember feeling a little overwhelmed
by the throngs of people in houses with
names that looked like calculus equations.
But at my fraternity’s last party
a couple weeks ago, I felt like Moses parting
the Red
Sea as I walked through the crowds. And
no, I didn’t hit a growth spurt sophomore
year.
In
a couple months, I will have graduated and
be working full-time — and that means
no more frat parties, unless I want to pull
a Mark Chmura. Knowing this, I’ve
really let it all soak in the last couple
weeks whenever I’ve been at one of
these ho-downs.
Now
I crack up laughing whenever I see two people
using the wall as a vertical mattress or
the entire basketball team posting up in
the corner of our lounge, surveying the
SAE dance floor and waiting for their groupies
to flock to them. I love watching uncomfortable
freshmen dance in a circle like they’re
in junior high. The same goes for attention-seeking
girls who do the half-dance half-walk strut
upon entering a room, seemingly unaware
of how transparent their go-to move is.
I
still can’t deal with the smell. That
will never change. But I’ve found
that if you pre-game enough, you almost
forget about it by the end of the night.
I
guess it all just blends into the giant
haze of memories, or lack thereof.
This
column originally appeared in The Stanford
Daily of Stanford University.
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