Saturday, February 26, 2011

THE DEATH AND MELANCHOLY OF THE D & M


The following started off being written on beer coasters whilst at a party.
Yes, I am that sad.

THE DEATH AND MELANCHOLY OF THE D & M

A night of drinking, heavy or otherwise and loud music, heavy or otherwise, is rarely a bad thing. The chances of Mr. or Ms. Right or Mr or Ms. “Yeah, they're alright”, are quite great for the beer garden variety partier. But the sad fact is that in a crowded bar, where people prefer being in one big long line instead of crowding the bar like they're supposed to, or a booming concert or dive or insert musical/alcoholic venue here, of choice, the constant string of slurred words and unheard conversation gives the unattractive, such as myself, a rare chance of survival in the sticky floored world of the survival of the fittest (fittest being, a UK colloquial).
Chavs: Kinda glad I don't live in London
The only other option is to find someone at the bar or outside, smoking or drinking or in some other random 'less loud' area and try and court them. However, the problem with that is a bit more personal than an overlying experience appraisal for those who do smoke, can speak loud or enjoy the fresh air whilst drinking and taking in tobacco. Being a student and voluntarily unemployed, as Justin Hazelwood craftily put it, a drink is fairly out of the question, especially at a bar. Let alone for anyone else, which really lacks in social friendly points, however, for those who buy drinks for the recently acquainted, as I've found it a sleazy happenstance as the merit of one's own social persona should rarely be based around alcohol, nor should a girl who's 'really into you'.
Dude, did you see that? The hot chick. She's totally eyeballing me
I'm a bit more of a long term guy and whilst I have bought a drink for a girl before, the results were more of the loss of a bet as I was overly confident (and drinking) for a pool game, of course, with me making up excuses, you could probably do the same too. Speaking of excuses (and poor segues), being at a bar you really don't have much to say, in the line even less so, the bar probably won't have air-conditioning and everyone is either sweaty because of that or from dancing their asses off and no one likes a queue. I've never heard anyone ever remark, “How cool is this line” or “Did you see me in that line, dude, it was off the hook”, or I just don't know anyone that enthusiastic about things in a single file.
But what are you meant to talk about in the line, any form of questioning could lead to a swift kick to the balls or half a can of mace sprayed directly into your eyeballs, either way something precious and spherical in your body will be tormented. If you ask what drink they're having, they could be incredibly bitchy about it or could think you're gonna drop something in it later on. Even asking about the contents of the drink makes it sound as though you sound like some kind of pretentious alcoholic connoisseur or again, a creep.
The Lonely Island would like a word with you....

Being an asthmatic, the smoking thing is out of the question too. I know the really 'tough' people of the world who think I shouldn't worry, are asthmatic and smoke and nothing cough cough bad cough cough has ever cough happened to th *cough, hack wheez, drop to the ground, spilling a drink shattering the glass on their forehead. I don't smoke, nor can I hold conversation whilst having three of my senses raped at once.
There are, however, those rare wonderful instances where you're invited to a house party you lonely, lonely bastard. Whether it's a friend, a friend of a friend or a really nice ex you had to be super nice to all week because you knew a girl you like was gonna be there, invited you, you realise that this is your chance. This is better than a bar, this is the real you, you have provided your own drinks, you show what taste you have instead of just saying I'll have a beer or I'll have whatever is behind the bar. Of course, being limited in my price range, you'll either spend a good $5 to $10 on some goon (and for international readers goon is essentially very, very cheap fortified wine) or in my case a good $5.50 on a bottle of Moscato: an incredibly sweet, fizzy wine that gets a lightweight like me a good run for my money as well as being the butt of many jokes for 'real' wine drinkers.
To me, a lot better than goon
But with a good chance you'll share your bottle or even give away a can/small bottle of your drink to a fellow 'bro' or friend, maybe even to the person who invited you there as a form of friendship and solidarity and that you might be invited elsewhere another time, you know, coz we shared a drink once.
Then after walking around the house checking where you're friends are, where the best conversations are being had and where the most attractive people are, you'll probably hover over one conversation or girl trying to slide in a joke, reference or some kinda of vocal noise that will slide you just enough into the dynamic of the conversation, in which you can introduce yourself or at least become noticed.
So you know Pacman....
If there's no girl you can creepily pursue during the night, then you'll probably end up dropping into a chair next to someone equally drunk or just a bit more so than you and they'll say something either philosophical or whimsical about life or love or something you're interested in and you'll turn to them and be like, what? And they shall continue and you shall probably lead them on because you're probably too drunk, too tired or that girl has already gone. You'll indulge them in their philosophies and if you were any more sober and it was day time and you weren't in a party environment you'd probably pay them no mind, but what you do is you sit down, you stare into space with a few glances at them between sips and you nod your head and hope at one point you'll get to indulge them into your flightful intricacies on life. This is what many refer to as a Deep & Meaningful Conversation.
Do you know how awesome a bacon plane would be?
The first time I ever heard about the concept of Deep & Meaningful's (which I probably won't refer to with caps again) was at a high school after party and I was talking to a good friend of mine about the importance of Pokémon as a link between the East and West Trade Agreements. The main point of topic being that “OMG HOW GOOD IS POKÉMON” I was only 16, so I guess that despite not playing an iteration of the series for at least a year or two, I was still up on all the current Pokémon and had many good memories of staying up-late, hiding under the covers capturing Pokémon, humming the themes and battling friends at school. But then the conversation turned when someone mentioned the fact that post-1995 that Japan and American imports had gotten cheaper and cheaper. I knew the guy had been doing history for the entire time I had known him, but I didn't know of his enjoyment of the great glorified cockfighting series that was Pokémon. I knew the game started in Japan around 95 and we began talking about how Nintendo's history was full of being a game company but he told me about how once they were into selling playing cards and owning love hotels and other cool stuff and how gaming had really set Nintendo apart from every other Japanese company because of their international influence as well as cultural heritage.
Pictured: Japanese Cultural Heritage
I was blown away, absolutely and positively blown away. The guy then went on how he was gonna go and learn Japan and go there and eventually start working for Nintendo and how he had this whole idea about how he was either gonna work for Nintendo or try and make his own gaming company that brings both closer together, like making gaming world peace. This is fine, I'm all for this and being young and insightful and full of dreams and hopes is awesome, however, as I got older, I found that these deep and meaningful conversations were not just secluded to me and my little microcosm of a world. I heard from other people about how they'd talked to heaps and heaps of people about interesting topics and how they had become Gods of Knowledge from their hear-say and whimsy of the people spilling bits of rum and coke on them and spitting grinded hops and springs onto their cheek whilst recanting a tale of how they totes got drunk the other night and nearly grabbed the boob of the chick behind the bar.
Dude it was the best night EVAAAAH!
 I do believe that I've become a lot more cynical, nor wise, in my University education. I think I've just noticed more and more drunk people for what they are...drunk. They have this free spirit, which I usually get whilst drunk that slowly changes others into sweary, lusty, 'insightful', versions of themselves. I remember reading once that Freud perscribed Cocaine to himself and to his patients for social anxieties, whilst alcohol is no cocaine, the effect is not dissimilar. The amount of talking and blabbering seems to continue endlessly and more hot air is released into a bar in one night to fill an entire hot air balloon race.
In my youth, I felt that a deep and meaningful conversation was something that I had shared (albeit passively), was something awesome and hearing about the world from a perspective other than mine was refreshing. Of course being young and still impressed by everything, refreshing was probably on par with that of having a Slurpee every day.
You want one now don't you?
I was talking to friends about it afterwards and they referred it to me as having a deep and meaningful conversation and how they had them all the time at parties, especially with those incredibly inebriated and high. Most of my friends were much older than me and my distaste of beer and drugs (and inexperience), my options were (are) still limited. But how many other people had he told about his plan for trade relations and Pokédomination?
I felt used, as though my ears had been laid bare and prodded with some sweet words and then left in the brush of the wood only to be told that “Here's a twenty, you can call a mental cab, right?”. The amount of shit that people will talk about with you whilst drunk, whether you've known them for 10 years or 10 minutes, is fascinatting. Sitting with your friends and someone nearly tripping over and then going on about how only 5% of the world's population know what the thing at the end of your shoelaces are called.
AGLET'S MOTHERFUCKER WELCOME TO THE CLUB
As I got older and entered University, I found out that without alcohol, some things were still pretty good and more memorable but still didn't seem as fun. I had a fair distrust for drinkers as my parents and their friends loud and obnoxious behaviour rarely had a good memory, except when playing poker with real money and winning.
However, in recent times, deep and meaningfuls have been turned into an acronym of simply D & M. It sounds like a knock off version of Dungeons and Dragons and whenever I hear about it, I cringe slightly and the sense of having a deep and meaningful conversation in the future has turned into an odd cause of whether post-D&M (*cringe) will I just be referred to as that chubby kid who they had a D&M with.
I still feel dirty...
The lighter side of it all is that being a writer, I learn things and get stuff to write about and I'm very slowly maturing. I've found that being in my young adulthood or whatever I am at the moment, that I should mainly focus on what the person is saying rather than having a deep and meaningful conversation. I still will however focus on the little annoyances in life or otherwise I probably won't have anything to write about...or will I? Let's not try an find that out.
The point is to keep having deep and meaningful's, but try and be sober about it or at least try and have some kind of semblance to your reasoning and why you're telling the story. Like this article, I wished to be creative about my tales of youth and to give a very dry viewpoint on how our dating/meeting culture has sadly been stuck in an alcoholic and deafening rut for too long and if you wanna meet someone, probably a house party or getting to know someone over coffee is probably better.
You're not on this earth to teach lessons, you're not Einstein, you're not Kant, you're not Vonnegut, at least not before you're twenty and especially not when you've just downed your fifth glass. Also no one thinks you're cooler, hotter or tougher for nearly grabbing a barmaid's chest or trying to make out with a guy, especially not yourself. It's sad, desperate and could possibly have ended in an AVO or a ban.

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