In Which Expectations are not so much Great as Mildly Unhinged

On Friday it was the End-of-Block Party (not “the end of Bloc Party”, as in, “we decided to kill that band”) which, for all you non-Med kids is sort of like an end of semester party but less so. Anyway, this one was dubbed the “Red Party” ( the previous one having been a White Party, which makes us sound rather like bunches of skirmishers in the Tudors vs. Stuarts War of the Roses, now I come to write it down). Everyone was supposed to wear red (which was done with the usual level of commitment by the various attenders, which is to say that Yours Truly got completely carried away, and many people merely claimed to have thought that the pinkish tint on their black dresses was adequate on the grounds of serving a higher deity than Having-Fun-And-Not-Taking-Yourself-Very-Seriously, to wit: Looking-Hot-No-Matter-What) to support AIDS. Not to support AIDS in its admirable quest for global domination, obviously, but in order to help fight it. You know, because nothing says “serious funding for important autoimmune disease research” like “one free drink with ticket, wear red and be prepared to get lucky!!”. To this end, condoms were also handed out at this most salubrious of soirées, which advanced the cause presumably in the sense of (a) raising the awareness of the Medicine students that condom use reduced the spread of STIs and (b) reducing the risk of any of us catching it on the night. After all, thinking about AIDS is bound to put anyone in the mood (is apparently the gist), so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

ANYWAY. These trivialities aside, a reasonably pleasant time was had by all, and even if getting completely into the costume spirit was about as hip as it ever is, I still had fun (because I always do) dressing up for it. In fact, let’s face it, what with uncomfortable shoes and gigadecibel noise levels (hyperbole aside, is that even a word?) and crowding and expensive drinks and what have you, it’s important to really enjoy getting dressed up for these things because it’s so often the highlight of the evening. Maybe this attitude on my part contributes to the fact that this so often ends up being the case, but insight or any semblance of constructive thinking has never had any real role to play in the realm of blogging, let’s face it.

This is not, in fact, meant negatively, I actually really enjoy the aesthetics of interesting clothes and a chance to wear all the makeup you want without looking like a twit at 8 in the morning. At such an event, you can really go to town on your makeup, which is much more fun than just normal “try to look exactly like yourself only slightly better” makeup. I like doing this occasionally, because although I know I don’t look that different, and although anyone who was so much as slightly interested could find about a squillion (or about 280, which is more in that “a million deaths is a statistic” kind of way) photos of me on facebook, I like to pretend to myself that sometimes someone might go “ooh!” in a teen-movie post-makeover “She’s All That” spirit. I realise that this is dim (not least because that was a terrible movie, and, like I said, I barely look that different) but I lead a small sort of life and I think it is not unreasonable for me to extract these moments of mindless enjoyment from it. I do not, of course, wish for all the Freddie Prinz Jnrs. (heh) to fall for me beside fairylit pools or whatever it is, I just like to look noticeably levelled-up, so to speak.

Anyway, the upshot of this sort of slipshod thinking (and of our internet-filled and feedback-form-formed age) is that a part of me always sort of expects to get feedback about this sort of thing. Not just outfits and social functioning, but the party as a whole. This is probably a function of the fact that I’ve been being “educated” in one way or another for very nearly 20 years now (holy crap, this is the 19th year running, even if we don’t count preschool, whic we totally shoul, right?), and have basically accepted “being marked” as one of the basic precepts of life, I suppose. But this is very rarely something which actually happens for these sorts of social events. If you’re lucky, photos of you will end up on facebook (if you’re very lucky, one or two of them will even be flattering), and maybe some nit like me will write a blog post about how nice it was or something, but ultimately this is not actual follow-up in any meaningful sense.
At least having blamed the school system for this particular bit of oddness I don’t need to really worry about this strangely pathological urge of mine to ask “how I went” after these sorts of thing, I just need to continue to strenuously resist it.

This lack of feedback is probably a good thing anyway, for two reasons, even aside from the obvious ones like “who needs to worry about that sort of thing at a party? You definitely need to get out more, but maybe to different parties to the ones I’ll be at, yeah?”.

Firstly, I catch myself constantly expecting these sorts of big events to be actually momentous in some way. For something really Big and Important and Exciting to happen. In fact, these sorts of things (or things which seemed so at the time, which is enough) have happened in a good way a total of maybe four times in my adult life, despite the hundreds of parties I’ve been to. Usually what happens if you go to a party is exactly what you would expect, which is to say, very little which is out of the ordinary. This has the weird effect, in the meanwhile, that I catch myself at the party feeling like I’m waiting for the Thing to happen, when in fact it’s happening all around me, already, but is not all that momentous.

Secondly, I have a really quite impressive gift for faux pas. Notable this time is that asked if I came to this sort of party often I answered over-honestly, “not really”, and asked what it was that I did do, was utterly unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. The correct response, of course, is “I usually go to house parties” (rather than noisy crowded Event events), but this only occurred to me fully 24 hours later. At the time I succeeded in giving the impression of being some kind of housebound maiden aunt type who only occasionally leaves the house to do anachronistic things like Swing Dancing (which I like, so there). Also, asked what sort of music I actually like, I always seem to fumble inarticulately. “Oh,” (I say), “you know, most music. Lots of stuff. Not this song, particularly, but a lot of things...” And here I get carried away with not wanting to sound like a self-indulgent wanker who thinks their music taste is better than anyone else’s, and claim to have even worse taste than I actually have. What’s that even about, self? Maybe it’s because of the fact that there are, at present, 49.2 days worth of music in my iTunes. Any attempt to typefy such an amorphous mass of music must inevitably fail, but I really should pick 3 bands whose names to plump out on these occasions. Hip, but not alienatingly obscure, appealing but not overpopular. Preferably bands whose music I actually enjoy. On these grounds, Cathy Petöcz, Coldplay and The Presets are respectively excluded. Ok. In the future, I shall say “’The Bird & The Bee’, ‘Camera Obscura’, ‘The Postal Service’ and Lily Allen, this week, but I’m much to fickle to have proper favourites” which has the advantage of truth. Excellent!