This post is the first article in my social commentary column entitled, “what is the world coming to?” Contrary to first impressions, this column is not intended to be uniquely pessimistic or critical. Rather, I intend to comment on our society as it is now, and project my ideas, predictions, and aspirations about the future – the direction our society is headed.
The subject and content of this article are based on a personal experience I recently had. This means, of course, that I am not likely to present here an objective, comprehensive view of the social issues discussed. Rather, the observations made are highly influenced by my experience, but as a consequence the article is much more honest and down-to-earth than a purely theoretical, academic treatment. As a further disclaimer, I intended this narrative to be humorous. I have no idea if I have succeeded or not, but, for the record, that was the goal. I hope, at the very least, that it will spark a discussion – the Salon has been rather quiet lately; only two voices so far have been heard. I anticipate hearing many more in the future.
So don't ask me how, but I got coerced into going “clubbing” with most of my roommates and friends from physics. There are a dozen or so of us living in the same, fairly small dorm building; all of us are doing research this summer in physics or bio-physics. The guy who was organizing the outing (Brian) was really persuasive, and above all, persistent. And when he asked me to go, everyone else had turned him down except one girl, so I felt bad for him. Yeah, I can be easily suckered into doing things, if you can't tell. I had visions of sitting at a table, drinking something non-alcoholic, and chatting with friends. It didn't take long for me to realize that wasn't likely to happen.
Eventually, a group of eight or so of us heads to a club (Necto, I think), but one of the guys in our group (Jason) was already drunk and they wouldn't let him in, so we went to a club called Fifth Street something or other. It was a dirty, dingy place, and only my friends pulling me along by the arm convinced me to enter. I felt like I was entering a haunted house, only the monsters inside weren't paid to scare you. The dance floor (if you can call it that) was full of guys grinding girls' asses (pardon the language, there's really no more appropriate word here), who were themselves wearing dresses, skirts and shorts so short that there really wasn't anything to get in the way. I think my group were the only people actually dancing. I felt like I was in the interior of “the great and spacious building.”
But if that were all, I could have found some enjoyment loosening up from my nerdy, uptight self and dancing with my friends. Except they all got drunk (except one, a twenty-year-old girl from rural Michigan whose parents are highly religious and fairly conservative); that they got drunk did not bother me – it's no business of mine telling them how to live, after all. But as soon as they were drunk, they started giving me a hard time for not drinking, as if staying sober is an insult to every drunk around you.
Even worse, in my book anyway, my friends started giving me grief for not finding girls to grind with, as if that were a mandatory part of being in a club. "You have to have a girls butt in contact with your crotch for at least 15 minutes of every hour you're here or we'll throw you out!" One of the guys I was with was totally convinced I was gay by the time we left. He asked me the question several times, and was satisfied only after I insisted emphatically that I indeed was.
The most pathetic part of it all was how disgusted the girls I was with got as the night went on. We were there dancing till they stopped playing music at 2AM, and there were only a couple dozen people left in the club; thing is, all the guys were drunk as hell and even hornier and looking for a girl to take home. The guys in our group were mostly drunk, too, so most of them didn't notice how nervous and vulnerable the girls with us were feeling. One of them grabbed onto my arm and wouldn't let go until we left the club. Brian had to point out everyone in our group several times to irritable drunk guys to mark them as "off limits" or "sexually unavailable" or else they would never have left the girls in our group alone. It actually felt really scary and creepy, and I'm a guy! The girls I was with were really grossed out and disgusted, I could tell. I was ashamed of my gender, to say the very least.
So we manage to make it out of the club without losing anyone, only to find Jason (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent) kneeling in the street in front of two attractive, very drunk girls who were sitting on the curb waiting for a taxi to take them home. He was begging them to come back to his place and have sex with him. Out loud, in front of a dozen or so people who had just come out of the club. There conversation was along the lines,
"Come home with me."
"No, I don't sleep with just any guy."
"Oh, yeah right!"
"What do you think I am, a slut? I've only ever slept with 6 guys."
And so on and so forth. Brian (drunk as he was) had to go "cock block" his friend by starting a conversation with the girls in which he talked about his lovely mother back in NYC and the hobbies she has (sewing, knitting, etc). Josh got very angry and said some nasty things about Brian's mother. But it worked. We finally got him to give up on the girls.
Then came the long walk home. It was a long enough walk just getting from point A to point B, but drunks don't walk in straight lines, on either small or large scales. So we ended up going to points C, D, E, F, back to C, on to H, did a loop back to E, and then a couple of us went one way, three went to go 'swimming' in another direction, and that left me standing in the middle, worried about them all, but unable to leave the sober girl by herself on S. University street at 3AM to walk back to our dormitory alone. So I went with her and got home without any of the others. Before that, however, I got verbally attacked by an extremely drunk Jason for being Mormon. Apparently, having someone around who didn't believe in imbibing huge amounts of liquid poison and having promiscuous sex rained on his parade. I tried not to take it personally because he had been hammered for the past 6 hours straight.
I apologize for the unpleasant nature of the story, but I felt it was significant and worth sharing, somehow. It was my most epic "clubbing" experience to date; I thought I could be a nice guy and watch out for my friends while they had fun getting drunk, but I learned for myself that “clubbing” is a lifestyle that doesn't suit me at all, and is really no fun – despite what everyone says. Next time I'm invited I will have a thousand reasons (some tactful, others offensive) not to go. Hopefully my friends won't ask, and if they do, I hope they will give up after I give them the tactful reasons not to go. Otherwise I'll just let them have the truth straight, "on the rocks," so to speak.
The social significance of the story? Well, this is best illustrated by a counter-example, an event that occurred – oddly enough – the very next night. I decided after the grimey club fiasco of the previous night to spend the evening in intellectual pursuits. I walked to Borders Books, found a comfortable armchair, and read a book until the store closed at 11:00 PM. While walking home (with a new book under my arm) I passed a small grassy field near my research building where a handful of college students my age were playing frisbee. I watched them as I walked by, and one of them called out to me, inviting me to join them. It turns out they had just concluded religious services at a universalist Christian church composed mainly of college students at the University of Michigan – most of whom, in turn, were of Korean descent.
Eventually, a sizeable number from their group showed up, and we played ultimate frisbee for nearly two hours, until almost 1:00 AM. Afterwards, they invited me to attend their religious services and social activities, which I enthusiastically accepted. I was impressed by the easy, friendly way they interacted – both among each other and with me. I enjoyed myself infinitely more with them than I had the night before at the club; and what's more, it cost me nothing, whereas the club charged a ten-dollar entrance fee, and I escaped without paying more only because I didn't drink anything while I was there.
These experiences led me to ponder the nature of entertainment in our society. Somehow, conventional wisdom holds that the less morally palatable an activity is, the greater its entertainment value. But my own experience has taught me the contrary: that the most rewarding social activities are those that don't transgress moral boundaries. It is entirely possible to be thoroughly entertained by wholesome, friendly interaction. I wonder what can be done to promote such a concept of entertainment; hopefully before it is lost entirely to a society that is ever increasingly enamored with the morally perverse.
