Last night I abandoned resistance for a limited tour of hegemony. Surrender is not painless.
If the night were a literary work, the major narrative would have been foreshadowed by the radio preferences on the drive out. We had Green Day (a concession in normal listening patterns I'm happy to make for the group) and Against Me playing over a discussion about each band's work. AM's Joy played and the car sang along. I thought this was a token of collective enjoyment and (for lack of a better understanding of what motivates people to be around many more) removed from introspection. Steve changed what was playing to pop radio, finding the previous music was responsible for bring down the mood. Max agreed. I was confused. They then sang to music I'd never heard. I was lost.
The story has an interlude. We dropped of Meredith's car and Sarah's costume, and meandered around Syracuse waiting for Jeff and Megan
Eventually, we arrived at the main attraction. It was surreal, first, that such an apparently common activity is for me so overwhelming and, again, that uncomfortable can be infused with so much removed indifference. Despite an inescapable undertone of "I'm not really here," an hour into the bar scene, I found the ambition to escape, leaving disappointed and misanthropic. I wanted for and attempted normative behavior. I hoped the box I occupy was less of a prison and more of a choice, that this brand of fun wasn't, to me, inaccessible. Soon after, I lowered my desires. I just hoped no one noticed, at least not enough to spoil their good time.
I saw a ghost in flannel and what resembled a familiar face. The past stirred enough to fortify envy. There is a whole world I can't enter; there are people lost to me because of this. And yet some can fluidly transition with elegance. (Though it was clear to see many have neither the elegance nor said fluidity.)
Over the unfamiliar music, decibels too high, and through the deluge of strange faces, I tried to scream to Brad the poor excuses that would get me too the doors without alarm. I walked to the car, broke the zip tied emergency key, and found a stashed book. I read, appropriately, about conformity, rationalization, and psychology before my eyelids gained weight. I spent two cold hours sleeping. There was nothing I wanted to do more; I couldn't have been more content. Silence and solitude are my yellow sun. (Where as, bars are a shard of kryptonite.)
I woke to the phone, and picked up enthused party goers.
I've never had the obligation of designated driver bestowed and I've never shared the company of friends chemically uninhibited. I like neither. But all seemed copacetic, or at least I was too much in my own head to care. My body was the phlegmatic driver unmoved by drunk dialog, meanwhile, elsewhere I was increasingly alienated by the chatter. The fun of drinking and dancing are so foreign to my experience. How can these things compensate for the rest of the scene, and do so to the extent that one would want to return often? The best I can offer to explain the estrangement is to juxtapose it to the fictional Jen Crane of Defying Gravity who, unlike the rest of the crew, cannot see Beta. (It's a good show if you watch it all the way through. I swear. That's why it got canned -- just like Surface.) ..Even the shows I pick to follow are losers! :)
I think there is more to say, but I don't yet have words for it. The employees (all girls), wearing what would be appropriate for a beach, dancing on top of the bar was the most obvious aspect of an underlining sex and exploitation motif that might fit more into a theme of desperate-for-companionship better than lust. Though, maybe hedonism fits as the chief archetype better than a model defined by deficits. Sex, drugs, and dancing in a low light package wrapped in music loud enough to block any complex thought.
I worry the negative discourse of my intrapersonal dialog is merely rationalization for an inherent discomfort. Either way, it is frustration and generally upsetting to feel anxieties around an inability to conform here. That this has social significance or is the key for peer based interaction is, for me, harrowing.
However, more concerning is the available tools for reaching fulfilling entertainment. The impression left from Max and Steve's babbling afterward is that their night was greatly rewarding. The women they were excited to have seen and talked to, the drug that inspired and empowered them, nor the dancing that seemed to fulfill them have an entrance for me, have reward for me. This appears to be a large defecate, a disabling impairment.
At least sports do something for me. The euphoria I feel when I'm exhausted from a good game is what I saw in them driving home. The world according to Will would be a much better place if rugby pitches were where bars are now. (...and it wasn't soiled by macho attitudes and malicious intent, and they played 7s instead of 15s)
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