Visiting A Bar School When I Come From A House Party School

A Broad a semester7 years ago

Lines were drawn in the sand by the old gods, or some decrepit mayor that zoned everything around the campus as “residential,” so it’s really not up to you and you can’t actually change it. Some schools have a house party scene, and some have a bar scene. It’s one or the other. Sweeping generalization? Perhaps. Will I do anything to clarify the intricacies? Probably not.

My school is all house parties, and that left me woefully unprepared for my visits to buddies at other universities. These guys have been going to bars since they were pimple faced 17 year old pledges. I may be great at posting up on our back deck and declaring myself a Golden God, but I don’t play many away games. So when I got the call to come visit an old friend at his college, I didn’t even consider that I was a total bar greenhorn.

When I showed up on Friday we shot the shit, caught up a little more than we had over the phone, and he introduced me to the guys in his house. I had left my campus after class that day so we didn’t have much time before we went out. I didn’t take long for me to realize that “Los Fenix” was the name of a bar…and that presented a problem. I didn’t have a fake I.D. Never needed one, never really considered getting one. I got into my fraternity as a freshman and haven’t had to search for alcohol since. There was never a night that someone I knew went out to one of our two total bars and I felt like I missed out.

I told my friend Stevie that I was without a fake and the whole room sort of slowed down. I could see his brothers shooting each other looks and Stevie couldn’t quite figure out what to say. Sensing the shift in climate, I immediately started justifying my reasoning because, you know, I didn’t want them to think I was a pussy. I definitely party, guys. I definitely drink, like so much. So much alcohol. “So much” meaning both frequency and volume. I SWEAR!

After that they reacted about as skeptically as you guys are right now Stevie declared that we would have to go to The River. Not an actual river, I wouldn’t have used capitalization for that. The River was just a bar that was lax with I.D’s. His friends let out some groans because apparently this was an underclassmen scene and is usually flooded with freshman dudes. I didn’t love being the out of town guy that fucked up the plans…but this is my world and everyone else is just along for the ride.

Now actually getting to the bar was strange for me. Waiting in line I felt a tremendous amount of pressure. I don’t like pressure. I avoid things that I could fail. I’m not Kobe Bryant, I don’t need that negativity in my life. If this bouncer asked for my I.D. I didn’t have a shitty fake to hand him, I had my own I.D., and a bucket of lies. I played it like I wasn’t phased but I was stressing. Remember how McLovin freaks out before going into the liquor store? That was essentially my internal monologue. Alas, all was well and the bouncer waved us through.

Once inside I was dazzled by the girls waiting around the bar like seagulls at the beach — just waiting to fed by others. But me, being the gentleman that I am, obliged them wholeheartedly. Turns out it was a blast; and nothing like my trip to Manhattan where I went to a bar and spent literally all of my money in 20 minutes. Cheap drinks, a change of scenery, and music loud enough for me to pretend like I couldn’t hear people talking to me, instead of ignoring them and just waiting for my turn to talk like I usually do. We drank, we fought, and we made our ancestors proud.

I discovered that I wouldn’t mind if I had gone to bar school all along. Seeing the guys navigating the waters of getting a girl to come back to their house was pretty new, because I’m used to seeing more, “Want to go upstairs?”. But these girls were products of the same system as these guys, that’s the circle of life, and people will find the watering hole no matter what.

Now to clarify some of those things that I said I wouldn’t clarify: If you think, “my school is both” you’re probably a bar school. Of course you have parties at your house, but it isn’t your primary source, and you’d know if it were. If you think “yeah we only do house parties…but like when I became a junior I only went to the bars”, guess what, you’re a house party school and you’ve turned into an elitist prick. Figure out what the watering hole is and go there, wherever it may be..

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