Well, this drunken Asian has not been so drunk as of late, which would explain the absence of new posts. I've been experimenting with drinking in an adult manner -- well, drinking less for the sake of just getting drunk, and drinking more along the lines of well, enjoying the taste of the alcohol I'm consuming. Yes, I am no longer a guzzler. I'm a sipper. And this is what I've discovered.
Mostly, what I've been noticing is how hard it is to meet new people without drinking. Recently, I went to a party -- a party where I new virtually no one, mind you. The Little Asian is professedly a bit shy when in the company of strangers, but I felt that I should go out there and see how sober people mingle. And what I found is that I am vastly inept.
The first thing I noticed was that this party had a lack of plastic cups -- yes, when I saw people were writing their names on the cups, I felt myself flashing back to the cheap ass college days where we could only afford a stash of 25 cups and by the end of the night, that same cup was a sickening flavor of vodka, Carlo Rossi, and tequila shots.
As I was standing around -- cupless -- feeling that it would be quite rude to grab a bottle and start sipping on it or quite vulgar to fish a used cup out of the trash. Don't even ask me why I'm at this party, but I thought it would be adult like to meet new people and I was randomly invited by a random acquaintance to this random party. I'm not saying I needed to get drunk to meet new people, but I needed something to do, something to hold unto, something to sip and look cool and unaffected. I would have been happy with a damn glass of water, but you know -- no cups. And I think the real cups were off limits. I mean, this was the type of apartment where you have to take off your shoes. And side note, I really hate padding around people's apartments (especially in winter) in my white tube socks while stepping in some water or alcohol spilled puddle.
I walked around the room, trying to make eye contact, and I realized that most people at this party didn't know each other and that most people at the party were too sober to make eye contact. I roamed around conversations of the weather, the nice view of the apartment, and well, the weather. And when people were lucky enough to find themselves in a conversation, they clung to that person for dear life, afraid that if that person left them, they would be feeling massively unpopular. I vaguely remember being pinned in a corner with a Asian girl named Kiki who had a high pitched laugh that pierced my ears. And Kiki clung to me. Kiki was a nice chick, but I didn't want her to cling to me. I had to loudly announce that I had to go to the bathroom for her to let me out of the corner.
And there wasn't even music. There was no music to fill the gaps of the awkward conversations. What kind of party was this?
At this point, the host busted out a Scrabble board and a group of people surged forward, grabbing a space around the small board. And then I realized, oh, man, I didn't even know. It's a game night. But even the game nights I had gone to before had had more alcohol, music and multiple games around the room. Not one small game in the center of the room. And as I stared at this small, sad Scrabble board in the midst of this large room, strangers fighting their way to make space for themselves around a board, I realized, Scrabble is a very intimate game. It's a game of close proximity, inside jokes, competitive streaks between friends, bets on whose going to win, making a drinking game out of a game that has nothing to do with drinking. And standing there, cupless, sober, I just didn't have it in me to make a spot by that Scrabble board. So I got up and left.
And sitting at a bar the next day with real friends, we all agreed that games should only be played amongst friends, with multiple cups available for multiple drinks, in the homes of people we know.
