"Forgoing any rationalist or hedonist form of apology, I propose to speak only of a troth that is observed by virtue of the absurd - that is to say, simply because it has been pledged - and by virtue of being an absolute which will uphold the husband and wife as persons . . . . I maintain that fidelity thus understood is the best means we have of becoming persons. The person is manifested in the making. What is person is manifested in the making. What is person within each of us is an entity built up like a work of art - built up thanks to constructiveness and in the same conditions as we construct things . . . . Neither passion nor the heretical faith of which it sprang could have inspired the belief that the control of Nature should be the aim of our lives."
-Denis de Rougemont, apologist for the ideal of Holy Matrimony
Here in a nutshell is the whole story of the identification of the absolute, the personal, and the divine with artifice in opposition to nature. In its original meaning the persona, the mask, is indeed a construct, a maya in its proper sense. But for this very reason it should have been distinguished form the divine and the absolute. For the divine, the real, is not the construct; it is the natural, non-verbal, and indescribable order (li) from which construction emerges and to which it is subordinate. To set the principle of artifice and construction outside and against nature is to tear the universe apart in such a way that the rift can only be healed upon the terms of the total submission of of nature to the will and its legal violence. Such a view of the divinity of the law and the word issues in a conception of the marriage contract where man is made for the Sabbath, not the Sabbath made for man, for man is held to aquire personality or spiritual dignity by submitting himself irrevocably to an absolute law. Faithfulness is thereby confused with a complete mistrust of oneself, for on these terms the human organism is to be trusted only in so far as it binds itself to a law - a law which it has itself invented, and whose order and structure is far inferior to his own.
It was for this reason that Confucius made jen or "human-heartedness" a far higher virtue than i or "righteousness," and declined to give the former any clear definition. For man cannot define or legalize his own nature. He may attempt to do so only at the cost of identifying himself with an abstract and incomplete image if himself - that is, with a mechanical principle which is qualitatively inferior to a man. Thus Confucius felt that in the long run human passions and feelings were more trustworthy than human principles of right and wrong, that the natural man was more of a man than the conceptual man, the constructed person. Principles were excellent, and indeed necessary, so long as they were tempered with human-heartedness and the sense of proportion or humor that goes with it. War, for example, is less destructive when fought for greed than for the justification of ideological principles, since greed will not destroy what it wishes to possess, whereas the vindication of principle is an abstract goal which is perfectly ruthless in regard to the humane values of life, limb and property.
Zealots and fanatics of all kinds revolt at Confucian reasonableness, with its spirit of compromise and mellow humor, feeling it to be ignoble and tame, lacking the heroism and fire of irrevocable commitment to principle - and this is precisely the attitude of Chinese Communism in its present attempt to destroy the Confucian tradition. But from the Confucian standpoint the zealotry of irrevocable commitment to principle is not only a silly bravado and a striking of heroic attitudes; it is also a total insensitivity to inner feeling and to the subtle intelligence of the natural order. "The superior man," said Confucius in the Analects, "goes through life without any one preconceived course of action or any taboo. He merely decides for the moment what is the right thing to do."
From our standpoint such a precept is the recommendation of caprice and disorder, for we feel that unless the artifice of law is held over our heads like a club we shall revert to our "basic" and "natural" depravity, as if this is what we really are under the "veneer" of civilization. This is not, however, what we are really, naturally, and basically. It is what we are off-scene, which, as we saw, is not more real than what we are on-scene. Unseemly disorderliness is, in fact, the last thing of which anyone would accuse followers of the Confucian and Taoist philosophies, since they have formed the foundations of one of the most stable societies in the world.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Stigma of Being Alone
This afternoon I took a walk around the parking lot of my apartment complex, as I often do. It forms a loop around the complex which is surrounded by fences and tall trees, and while I sometimes grow tired of its sense of arbitrary confinement when walking, it is also comfortable and familiar, and makes for a nice zone to stay in when I don't feel like wandering far.
As I walked, I was listening to some Alan Watts lectures on my ipod, in which he discussed the issues of human beings seeing themselves as separated from the "outside" world. With the sun and wind on my skin and the trees surrounding me, it was a nice environment to listen to this kind of talk.
After walking for a while, I stopped to observe a pool about five feet wide that had formed in the parking lot concrete from rains the day or night before. It was filled with tiny fragments of shredded leaves, and as the wind played upon its surface, the bits of leaf swayed back and forth in the current, like driftwood in the ocean. The sun reflected off the surface of the pool and created beautiful patterns in the ripples when the wind blew especially strong upon the pool.
As I stood here observing this and simultaneously listening to Watts give his talk, I felt quite a bit of joy and a sensation that is hard to get across. I felt that viewing this microcosm of the world, this tiny ocean, drew me closer to an understanding of things as a whole. I spit into the pool and watched my little knot of saliva drift around with the current, my DNA mixing and flowing with the rest of it all.
While I was pondering this small scene, several cars drove by, and this is what I would like to focus upon in this post, because it made me feel strange.
Here I was, just a common resident of these apartments, enjoying a Sunday afternoon in a relaxed and what I feel is fairly "normal" fashion. But as these people drove by in their cars, I could feel their gaze on me. I felt judged. In my mind, I could imagine what was running through theirs. Perhaps it is simply neurotic imagining on my part, but in the past I have experienced the nature of judgment which occurs when a young man is seen to be engaged in lonesome, contemplative activity. It makes people uncomfortable. It makes them look and say "what is THAT guy doing?" with a defensive, nearly offensive mentality.
Once, years ago, I was doing something similar in the parking lot here, sitting on one of the concrete bars which lay at the end of parking spaces, shirtless and wearing my exercise shorts, simply soaking in my quotient of healthy sunlight for the day. A guy and a girl stopped as they walked past me, and the guy inquired as to what I was doing. Was it not obvious? My answer was that I was "getting some sun," and I think this must have been abundantly clear to the guy who asked the question. What he was really asking me was, "why are you sitting here alone?"
Sometimes I wish to be alone, and I know that overall I am more on the introverted side than extroverted, but I also find myself feeling increasingly lonely as the years pass. I do not wish to live by myself, to be an island to the world. I crave the companionship of like-minded individuals, and not in a superficial way. This is what makes this judgment of the lone man seem especially harsh to me. It feels like a double bind. If one wishes to make friends, it's much easier to do so if one has friends already. Starting from scratch is hard, and made even harder by this peculiarity of judgment applied to those who are alone. I know very well that if on that day when the couple crossed my path and the guy asked me a stupid question, it would not have happened if I had been seated with another person. Similarly, if I had company while observing the small pool today, I would have felt no neuroticism at the gaze of passing vehicles. To be with another is, in some way, to be validated. It displays to the world that your activities are consented to by a second party, and that they are shared. It is "social proof."
I think that one reason I feel judged for my activities is that they are, I suppose, rather abnormal. Individual contemplation of a pool is not something celebrated by our society. We put "communing with nature" on a pedastel, but it is not to be done in the context of urban life. You must remove yourself from the city or town to do this in a "sane" manner, unless it is in a public park or a river, or a similar intentionally "natural" place within a populated urbanized zone. Staring at a pool of water collected in concrete is not an acceptable thing to do alone. In a couple, especially a romantic one, this could be seen as acceptable due to the tinge of romanticism involved. "Oh look, those two lovers are enjoying the natural within the realm of the unnatural, how romantic!" I believe that even two men engaged in such an activity would be seen as an oddity and some sort of a vague threat, albiet less so than one man or woman doing it by themselves. This kind of individual reflection is so far off the beaten path of most peoples' lives that it must be in some form mocked or derided, so as to maintain comfort with the ego.
Maybe this ties in to the entire stigma of being alone. Group behavior is always a concession of minds to quiet themselves of other purposes and thoughts, so as to better facilitate the group as a whole. In many ways, I feel like it serves the same purpose as a blanket or a pacifier for an infant. When with the group, you no longer need worry about your actions being judged. The more you go along with the group whim, the less neurotic you need be about your behavior being seen as odd or erratic or somehow dangerous. Many people find it easy to give themselves over to group thinking and patterns of behavior. Our entire society functions because of people watching the same television, listening to the some music, attending the same sporting events, hearing the same news, and sharing thoughts and experiences in every other common way.
Therefore, the lone individual is an anathema. They must be questioned. Are they with the group? WHY are they alone? What are they doing? To a mind absolutely accustomed to group behavior and group trends of thinking, the solitary, reflective, and unharnessed mind is both a reminder of their mental conformity and a subtle threat of possibly undermining their importance, their group status, and their peace of mind.
Having read over this again, I come to the conclusion that I am probably right about the judgments being levied, and that it is not just a paranoid delusion. So what is the answer for me? I certainly will not cease my lone contemplative activity, and I must accept that I will encounter other people while doing it, from time to time. The only answer is that I must greet people with a smile, and live in the moment. Nothing is as disarming as a real smile, or an honest laugh. Sometimes it is hard for me to face the world in this way, and easy for me to fall into victim-minded thinking, but that sort of thing gets me nowhere. If anything else, I should share whatever I gain from contemplation with others. I think that might be the key to being less lonely, in the end.
As I walked, I was listening to some Alan Watts lectures on my ipod, in which he discussed the issues of human beings seeing themselves as separated from the "outside" world. With the sun and wind on my skin and the trees surrounding me, it was a nice environment to listen to this kind of talk.
After walking for a while, I stopped to observe a pool about five feet wide that had formed in the parking lot concrete from rains the day or night before. It was filled with tiny fragments of shredded leaves, and as the wind played upon its surface, the bits of leaf swayed back and forth in the current, like driftwood in the ocean. The sun reflected off the surface of the pool and created beautiful patterns in the ripples when the wind blew especially strong upon the pool.
As I stood here observing this and simultaneously listening to Watts give his talk, I felt quite a bit of joy and a sensation that is hard to get across. I felt that viewing this microcosm of the world, this tiny ocean, drew me closer to an understanding of things as a whole. I spit into the pool and watched my little knot of saliva drift around with the current, my DNA mixing and flowing with the rest of it all.
While I was pondering this small scene, several cars drove by, and this is what I would like to focus upon in this post, because it made me feel strange.
Here I was, just a common resident of these apartments, enjoying a Sunday afternoon in a relaxed and what I feel is fairly "normal" fashion. But as these people drove by in their cars, I could feel their gaze on me. I felt judged. In my mind, I could imagine what was running through theirs. Perhaps it is simply neurotic imagining on my part, but in the past I have experienced the nature of judgment which occurs when a young man is seen to be engaged in lonesome, contemplative activity. It makes people uncomfortable. It makes them look and say "what is THAT guy doing?" with a defensive, nearly offensive mentality.
Once, years ago, I was doing something similar in the parking lot here, sitting on one of the concrete bars which lay at the end of parking spaces, shirtless and wearing my exercise shorts, simply soaking in my quotient of healthy sunlight for the day. A guy and a girl stopped as they walked past me, and the guy inquired as to what I was doing. Was it not obvious? My answer was that I was "getting some sun," and I think this must have been abundantly clear to the guy who asked the question. What he was really asking me was, "why are you sitting here alone?"
Sometimes I wish to be alone, and I know that overall I am more on the introverted side than extroverted, but I also find myself feeling increasingly lonely as the years pass. I do not wish to live by myself, to be an island to the world. I crave the companionship of like-minded individuals, and not in a superficial way. This is what makes this judgment of the lone man seem especially harsh to me. It feels like a double bind. If one wishes to make friends, it's much easier to do so if one has friends already. Starting from scratch is hard, and made even harder by this peculiarity of judgment applied to those who are alone. I know very well that if on that day when the couple crossed my path and the guy asked me a stupid question, it would not have happened if I had been seated with another person. Similarly, if I had company while observing the small pool today, I would have felt no neuroticism at the gaze of passing vehicles. To be with another is, in some way, to be validated. It displays to the world that your activities are consented to by a second party, and that they are shared. It is "social proof."
I think that one reason I feel judged for my activities is that they are, I suppose, rather abnormal. Individual contemplation of a pool is not something celebrated by our society. We put "communing with nature" on a pedastel, but it is not to be done in the context of urban life. You must remove yourself from the city or town to do this in a "sane" manner, unless it is in a public park or a river, or a similar intentionally "natural" place within a populated urbanized zone. Staring at a pool of water collected in concrete is not an acceptable thing to do alone. In a couple, especially a romantic one, this could be seen as acceptable due to the tinge of romanticism involved. "Oh look, those two lovers are enjoying the natural within the realm of the unnatural, how romantic!" I believe that even two men engaged in such an activity would be seen as an oddity and some sort of a vague threat, albiet less so than one man or woman doing it by themselves. This kind of individual reflection is so far off the beaten path of most peoples' lives that it must be in some form mocked or derided, so as to maintain comfort with the ego.
Maybe this ties in to the entire stigma of being alone. Group behavior is always a concession of minds to quiet themselves of other purposes and thoughts, so as to better facilitate the group as a whole. In many ways, I feel like it serves the same purpose as a blanket or a pacifier for an infant. When with the group, you no longer need worry about your actions being judged. The more you go along with the group whim, the less neurotic you need be about your behavior being seen as odd or erratic or somehow dangerous. Many people find it easy to give themselves over to group thinking and patterns of behavior. Our entire society functions because of people watching the same television, listening to the some music, attending the same sporting events, hearing the same news, and sharing thoughts and experiences in every other common way.
Therefore, the lone individual is an anathema. They must be questioned. Are they with the group? WHY are they alone? What are they doing? To a mind absolutely accustomed to group behavior and group trends of thinking, the solitary, reflective, and unharnessed mind is both a reminder of their mental conformity and a subtle threat of possibly undermining their importance, their group status, and their peace of mind.
Having read over this again, I come to the conclusion that I am probably right about the judgments being levied, and that it is not just a paranoid delusion. So what is the answer for me? I certainly will not cease my lone contemplative activity, and I must accept that I will encounter other people while doing it, from time to time. The only answer is that I must greet people with a smile, and live in the moment. Nothing is as disarming as a real smile, or an honest laugh. Sometimes it is hard for me to face the world in this way, and easy for me to fall into victim-minded thinking, but that sort of thing gets me nowhere. If anything else, I should share whatever I gain from contemplation with others. I think that might be the key to being less lonely, in the end.
Friday, March 27, 2009
The Hipster Party
Last night I went out, despite not feeling much of an inclination to. My friend Dane was free for the evening, which he normally isn't, and I had wanted to hang out with him for a while. Dane is both a nice, nerdy kind of guy and a socially "cool" person. He knows a lot of people. He knows where parties are, and I had been eager to go to more of those this semester. The parties that I had gone to with Dane, while typically alcohol-soaked and loud, had been laid back and un-hip enough for me to enjoy myself at. This was not to be the case tonight.
I went to meet him at Triple Crown, a small dive bar located next to the iconic "yellow store," the neo hippie/hipster gas station and alcohol distribution center of San Marcos. The crowd there was small and cohesive, seeming to all be familiar with the band playing. The band themselves were alright. They were not pretentious, and had enough technical skill and songwriting ability to entertain.
However, near the end of their set, they played what is apparently their anthem song, "Stop Drinking Alone." This irritated me a bit. Maybe it was the guy who repeatedly poked me and others in the back and instructed us to put our hands in the air, but I was not feeling this song. Its implication that life and social life in particular are all about drinking didn't resonate with me. It was far too earnest and lacking in humor, and I felt out of my element with a bunch of hipster-looking people enthusiastically singing along to it. I started to get a creeping feeling that this was not a crowd I fit into.
Dane managed to cut his arm open pretty badly on a piece of broken glass on the bar. Me and a girl helped to patch him up. This girl was one of a few who I had added on facebook back when I was in a futile "add chicks and get to know them online" state of mind, and I had removed her before too long due to her constant inane attention-whoring status updates and generally apparent shallowness. In person, she was basically the same, sending and receiving text messages every thirty seconds.
We took care of Dane's arm and then he and I went to my car. It was a chilly, moist night, and my windows were all entirely fogged over. Backing out of the very narrow parking space and into the equally narrow lane next to the bar which led to the street, I tapped the bumper of the car next to mine with my bumper, going 1 mile per hour or less. From experience, I knew that it couldn't have done any damage, and sure enough, it had not, but that didn't stop a sickly thin, hoodie-clad, thick-glasses, backpack-wearing hipster piece of trash from trying to start drama about it. Fortunately, I kept my cool, and everyone present could tell that it was a non-issue, so the idiot backed off and we were on our way.
Arriving at the party, my first impression was that there appeared to be too many people in a small house which was surrounded by deep mud from the recent rain. Everyone had walked through it, and the stuff was caked an inch deep on my own shoes. I spent about a minute trying to wipe it off, but quickly noticed that others had not shown the same courtesy, as it was being tracked all over the place inside of the house.
The house was standing room only, and about 90 degrees inside due to the mass of packed bodies. The only available keg was crammed into a corner, with twenty or so people all trying to get to it at once. I helped Dane wash some glasses in the kitchen (an example of the kind of thoughtful, well-meaning spirit that he has - he's a good guy), and then took a glass to try to get into that keg-waiting mob. I stood in the same place for about five minutes, and grew increasingly agitated with the heat, the lack of personal space, and the attire of the people surrounding me. It was all the same hipster uniform bullshit, with dumb tattoos, guys wearing womens' v-necked blouses, bandanas, skinny jeans cut off at the knees or not, large lip rings, thick glasses, and garish day-glo band logo t-shirts.
This overall assault on my senses got to me. I started to bitch, asking why one of the guys who had been standing at the keg for nearly five minutes wasn't moving and allowing other people their turn. In response to this, the same ultra-hip douchebag who had accosted me about my minor car bump earlier turned around and said "HEY, YOU'RE THAT GUY WHO HIT TWO CARS." Two cars? Was this guy just making shit up to sound more grandiouse? He had the trademark hipster completely unshaven facial hair, the buddy holly glasses, a pointless accessory backpack, and a black hoodie that he was wearing with the hood over his head, even though it was sweltering hot inside of this jam-packed house. I was completely disgusted. He started to give me some kind of lecture about how this "wasn't my party" and I promptly responded by calling him out on his exaggeration and telling him that he "needed to shut up." He had the last word, which was some kind of whiny effeminate attempt to tell me what was up, and then that was the end of that.
The heat, the claustrophobia, and probably my lack of sleep from the night before were adding up. Suddenly I wanted to beat the shit out of this guy, and shatter his awful glasses on pavement while kicking him in his emaciated stomach muscles. Of course, I have more self control than that, so I stood there and sweltered some more, still waiting for my chance to get a goddamn beer. A few minutes later, still standing in the same place, some girl looked at me and said "you aren't very happy, are you?" I wasn't even frowning, but I guess it was obvious from my eyes. I said that no, I wasn't, and she responded with some kind of "that's too bad" phrase and sneered at me. This girl was actually trying to fuck with me just because I didn't look pleased by the situation. I hadn't said a word to her or looked at her beforehand. My incredulity about these people continued to rise.
Finally, I managed to get over to the keg, and the tap was broken. A girl fiddled with it to no avail, and people started yelling for another tap. Frustrated, I gave up on that working after a minute or so, and moved out of the oppressive mass of people surrounding the no longer functioning keg.
I went to the kitchen, where the host and a few other people were secretly setting up another one, but the tap they had was missing the bottom piece which connected it to the keg spout. Despite this, they kept trying to force it to work. I pointed out that it was not going to work for simple mechanical reasons, and visually showed them how the bottom part of the tap did not fit with the top part of the keg. You'd think at this point that they would just start searching for the bottom piece, or find another tap altogether. Instead of this, they kept trying to force the incomplete tap to work. I couldn't believe it. It's like these people were so divorced from mechanical, physical reality, so accustomed to getting anything they wanted at the push of a button, that they couldn't grasp the extremely simple fact that this tap was a mechanical device which was missing a vital part. They just kept pushing it into the keg spout and turning it, futively hoping that some magical physics-defying event would occur and beer would burst forth from the keg, like ambrosia divinely granted by the god of college hipster parties. Yes, my thick-spectacled brothers, the Dos Equis shall flow freely on this night, for we are all far too hip to be sober.
Anyway, after this event I had shifted into a mentality of wanting to escape. I went outside and stood on a stoop, cherishing the cool night air. The contrast between the cool dark silence in front of me and the noisy suffocating heat behind me was very palpable. I thought about how maybe I was just too old for this kind of shit. At 28, I don't feel like an old man, and I don't think I should, but maybe any party full of 20-year-olds would be physically draining to me, even without the unappealing hipster elements. Then I thought about other college parties that I attended in this town, and decided that no, this was simply a bad scene.
It's worth mentioning that the house itself was a nice place. It obviously dated from the 1970s, with unhewn stone walls organically incorporated into the structure, and a tiered carpeted living room area that looked delightfully comfortable and retro. That area was currently jammed full of dancing hipsters grinding mud into the carpet. Glancing into that area upon going back inside, I noticed that the music was coming from someone's ipod. Their selections were decent, at least. Danceable stuff like Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai. Listening to "Thriller" at a party in 2009 seems strange to me, though.
Somewhere along the line I managed to get a beer from the first keg, but it was Natty Light or something equally vile, and I only finished half of it. I briefly talked to some people outside, and then Dane and I left at around 2 AM, working together to find the right roads back to the middle of San Marcos in our somewhat drunken state.
All in all, I felt like it was a waste of an evening. It wasn't an environment where I felt comfortable making friends, and I was turned off by the appearance of most of the people there, including the girls. There were a couple people I talked to briefly who seemed like nice folks, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. I also ended up tracking the same gunky mud into my own apartment, and it felt like a cursed mark of having gone to the wrong place.
Other highlights:
Seeing a girl whose birthday was that night walk into the kitchen with her entire face covered in icing, holding the half-destroyed cake she had mashed her head into. Some guy licked her face. She was very drunk and not attractive, and the whole thing was gross.
Telling the girl at the party who kept texting every 30 seconds that she should have her cellphone implanted in her arm. Instead of taking offense to this, she said "oh, yeah" or something like that, as if it were a normal observation to make.
I went to meet him at Triple Crown, a small dive bar located next to the iconic "yellow store," the neo hippie/hipster gas station and alcohol distribution center of San Marcos. The crowd there was small and cohesive, seeming to all be familiar with the band playing. The band themselves were alright. They were not pretentious, and had enough technical skill and songwriting ability to entertain.
However, near the end of their set, they played what is apparently their anthem song, "Stop Drinking Alone." This irritated me a bit. Maybe it was the guy who repeatedly poked me and others in the back and instructed us to put our hands in the air, but I was not feeling this song. Its implication that life and social life in particular are all about drinking didn't resonate with me. It was far too earnest and lacking in humor, and I felt out of my element with a bunch of hipster-looking people enthusiastically singing along to it. I started to get a creeping feeling that this was not a crowd I fit into.
Dane managed to cut his arm open pretty badly on a piece of broken glass on the bar. Me and a girl helped to patch him up. This girl was one of a few who I had added on facebook back when I was in a futile "add chicks and get to know them online" state of mind, and I had removed her before too long due to her constant inane attention-whoring status updates and generally apparent shallowness. In person, she was basically the same, sending and receiving text messages every thirty seconds.
We took care of Dane's arm and then he and I went to my car. It was a chilly, moist night, and my windows were all entirely fogged over. Backing out of the very narrow parking space and into the equally narrow lane next to the bar which led to the street, I tapped the bumper of the car next to mine with my bumper, going 1 mile per hour or less. From experience, I knew that it couldn't have done any damage, and sure enough, it had not, but that didn't stop a sickly thin, hoodie-clad, thick-glasses, backpack-wearing hipster piece of trash from trying to start drama about it. Fortunately, I kept my cool, and everyone present could tell that it was a non-issue, so the idiot backed off and we were on our way.
Arriving at the party, my first impression was that there appeared to be too many people in a small house which was surrounded by deep mud from the recent rain. Everyone had walked through it, and the stuff was caked an inch deep on my own shoes. I spent about a minute trying to wipe it off, but quickly noticed that others had not shown the same courtesy, as it was being tracked all over the place inside of the house.
The house was standing room only, and about 90 degrees inside due to the mass of packed bodies. The only available keg was crammed into a corner, with twenty or so people all trying to get to it at once. I helped Dane wash some glasses in the kitchen (an example of the kind of thoughtful, well-meaning spirit that he has - he's a good guy), and then took a glass to try to get into that keg-waiting mob. I stood in the same place for about five minutes, and grew increasingly agitated with the heat, the lack of personal space, and the attire of the people surrounding me. It was all the same hipster uniform bullshit, with dumb tattoos, guys wearing womens' v-necked blouses, bandanas, skinny jeans cut off at the knees or not, large lip rings, thick glasses, and garish day-glo band logo t-shirts.
This overall assault on my senses got to me. I started to bitch, asking why one of the guys who had been standing at the keg for nearly five minutes wasn't moving and allowing other people their turn. In response to this, the same ultra-hip douchebag who had accosted me about my minor car bump earlier turned around and said "HEY, YOU'RE THAT GUY WHO HIT TWO CARS." Two cars? Was this guy just making shit up to sound more grandiouse? He had the trademark hipster completely unshaven facial hair, the buddy holly glasses, a pointless accessory backpack, and a black hoodie that he was wearing with the hood over his head, even though it was sweltering hot inside of this jam-packed house. I was completely disgusted. He started to give me some kind of lecture about how this "wasn't my party" and I promptly responded by calling him out on his exaggeration and telling him that he "needed to shut up." He had the last word, which was some kind of whiny effeminate attempt to tell me what was up, and then that was the end of that.
The heat, the claustrophobia, and probably my lack of sleep from the night before were adding up. Suddenly I wanted to beat the shit out of this guy, and shatter his awful glasses on pavement while kicking him in his emaciated stomach muscles. Of course, I have more self control than that, so I stood there and sweltered some more, still waiting for my chance to get a goddamn beer. A few minutes later, still standing in the same place, some girl looked at me and said "you aren't very happy, are you?" I wasn't even frowning, but I guess it was obvious from my eyes. I said that no, I wasn't, and she responded with some kind of "that's too bad" phrase and sneered at me. This girl was actually trying to fuck with me just because I didn't look pleased by the situation. I hadn't said a word to her or looked at her beforehand. My incredulity about these people continued to rise.
Finally, I managed to get over to the keg, and the tap was broken. A girl fiddled with it to no avail, and people started yelling for another tap. Frustrated, I gave up on that working after a minute or so, and moved out of the oppressive mass of people surrounding the no longer functioning keg.
I went to the kitchen, where the host and a few other people were secretly setting up another one, but the tap they had was missing the bottom piece which connected it to the keg spout. Despite this, they kept trying to force it to work. I pointed out that it was not going to work for simple mechanical reasons, and visually showed them how the bottom part of the tap did not fit with the top part of the keg. You'd think at this point that they would just start searching for the bottom piece, or find another tap altogether. Instead of this, they kept trying to force the incomplete tap to work. I couldn't believe it. It's like these people were so divorced from mechanical, physical reality, so accustomed to getting anything they wanted at the push of a button, that they couldn't grasp the extremely simple fact that this tap was a mechanical device which was missing a vital part. They just kept pushing it into the keg spout and turning it, futively hoping that some magical physics-defying event would occur and beer would burst forth from the keg, like ambrosia divinely granted by the god of college hipster parties. Yes, my thick-spectacled brothers, the Dos Equis shall flow freely on this night, for we are all far too hip to be sober.
Anyway, after this event I had shifted into a mentality of wanting to escape. I went outside and stood on a stoop, cherishing the cool night air. The contrast between the cool dark silence in front of me and the noisy suffocating heat behind me was very palpable. I thought about how maybe I was just too old for this kind of shit. At 28, I don't feel like an old man, and I don't think I should, but maybe any party full of 20-year-olds would be physically draining to me, even without the unappealing hipster elements. Then I thought about other college parties that I attended in this town, and decided that no, this was simply a bad scene.
It's worth mentioning that the house itself was a nice place. It obviously dated from the 1970s, with unhewn stone walls organically incorporated into the structure, and a tiered carpeted living room area that looked delightfully comfortable and retro. That area was currently jammed full of dancing hipsters grinding mud into the carpet. Glancing into that area upon going back inside, I noticed that the music was coming from someone's ipod. Their selections were decent, at least. Danceable stuff like Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai. Listening to "Thriller" at a party in 2009 seems strange to me, though.
Somewhere along the line I managed to get a beer from the first keg, but it was Natty Light or something equally vile, and I only finished half of it. I briefly talked to some people outside, and then Dane and I left at around 2 AM, working together to find the right roads back to the middle of San Marcos in our somewhat drunken state.
All in all, I felt like it was a waste of an evening. It wasn't an environment where I felt comfortable making friends, and I was turned off by the appearance of most of the people there, including the girls. There were a couple people I talked to briefly who seemed like nice folks, but the negatives far outweighed the positives. I also ended up tracking the same gunky mud into my own apartment, and it felt like a cursed mark of having gone to the wrong place.
Other highlights:
Seeing a girl whose birthday was that night walk into the kitchen with her entire face covered in icing, holding the half-destroyed cake she had mashed her head into. Some guy licked her face. She was very drunk and not attractive, and the whole thing was gross.
Telling the girl at the party who kept texting every 30 seconds that she should have her cellphone implanted in her arm. Instead of taking offense to this, she said "oh, yeah" or something like that, as if it were a normal observation to make.
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