So about two weeks ago, I went to my law school’s holiday party. Now I suppose on the face this sounds like it should be a good time: a welcome respite from the rigors of studying.  I, however, was wary. You see, I haven’t exactly bothered to make friends at school. I’ve chalked this up to the fact that (apparently) in law school, the natural progression of making friends does not occur.[1] I know that this sounds pathetic - at best - but trust me, it’s not. Just from taking a quick look at the people in my law school class, you would chose to eat lunch by yourself too.[2] And so, this in mind, when presented with the option of going to the holiday party, my reaction was less “WHAT? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED EARLIER?! I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!!” and more “How expensive, is there booze, would I be missing any good sporting events.”[3] Doing this balancing test, I decided, 'well, why the hell not - maybe someone I don’t like will embarrass himself!'[4]

                Of course, I couldn’t attend this event without considering the article I would write as Shatterfaced.com’s Chief Legal Holiday Party Reporter, so I decided the best way to go about this would be to give a play-by-play notebook of the events that happened. Now, I promise you I will not 'Tucker Max' this thing. But I DO think we should set out some parameters beforehand:

·         I really dislike a lot of people. It’s not an elitist thing - it’s more of a scale I hold everyone to that I certainly do not measure highly on.

·         I invented a formula that I will display during each entry that will be very important to ascertain my level of annoyance/acceptance at the time. In any given situation an event could be going on that I either enjoy or dislike. We’ll call this event variable E.[5] Now E can be a number from 1(talking to the 300-pound kid who takes his shoes off behind me in class and then falls asleep) to 10(standing by myself and drinking a beer without appearing awkward). Now (obviously) I will be drinking, so let’s add a modifier to this formula. Obviously (again), this number will have to fluctuate as a) I’m having a neutral time when I’m not drinking b) the more I drink the better time I’m having until c) there gets to be a certain time when drinking only makes me madder. So we’ll keep D (drinks at 1 and add .1 every time I have a drink until I reach what I call “infinity.” Finally, lets add a third variable we’ll call the “event modifier,” (X). This could be anything that makes the situation better (Ex. good song playing, good game on television, looking at an attractive girl across the bar) or for that matter worse (Ex. Horrible song playing, stressing about a game I’m not watching, getting hit on by someone fat and ugly). So now the formula looks like this:

(E)(D) +/-X = What kind of time I am currently having on the same scale we used for E

You got it? Let’s try an example problem: Tom’s at a party watching an exciting football game with a bunch of people he doesn’t really like. He’s had 8 beers. What would we have? Well: 2 (cause I hate everyone) X 1.7 (for amount of beers) + 4(watching a good football game) = 7.4. See? Not that hard.

·         Recently, I’ve gained a notoriously low tolerance. I blame this on the fact that I’ve stopped drinking as violently and frequently as I did in college.[6]

Ok- you got it. Here we go.

7:00 PM

What I had expected at a Law School Holiday Party: Quiet music, one bar where people would moderately be drinking wine, professors and students talking in a respectful manner, some of the boys shooting the shit in the corner while the girls quietly tittered away in the other, people walking around with little finger food rudely shoving their way in the middle of conversations.

What the party was actually like: The same DJ who you had at your senior prom loudly playing Kanye, Bars jam-packed with people shoving to the front and grabbing four beers at a time, professors dancing in what I can only assume were suits that cost more than everything I owned combined, the boys and girls ridiculously grinding in the middle of the floor, full-on hot-dish entrees.

Mood Check (5)(1) + 5 = 10.
I’m eating, there is no way I’m not at 10 right now.

7:10 PM

After gathering a small plate of food it dawns on me that my early arrival leaves me with a conundrum: I don’t know anyone here, and now I have to stand around like an asshole and eat this in a suit while people mill about me. I’m not exactly going to go plop down with the 35 year-old law student who awkwardly brought his wife because he had the same pre-conceived notions about this party as I did. I ameliorate this problem by deciding that drinking until I’m social/don’t care where the fuck I eat is probably the best way to solve this issue.

I shove my way to the bar and say “May I have a beer?”  to which the bartender replies, “May I have a smile?” I comply and promptly forget to tip her for the rest of the night.

Mood Check (2)(1.1) + 0 = 2.2

7:40 PM

We’re gunna go ahead and skip a good half hour, namely because only important two things happened:

1)      I got unbelievably frustrated with the fact that no one I even remotely recognized had showed up.

2)      I drank 5 more beers on empty stomach.

This left me with the courage and overall “fuck-it-all-ness” to pile about 17 pounds worth of food on to one of those tiny finger food plates. I looked like I had just been released from an internment camp. I posted up on the window sill and proceeded to gorge/spill food on everything I own.

Mood Check (5)(1.6) + 5 = 13. I’m feeling damn skippy.

8:00 PM

Finally, some kids in my class have shown up. Not really knowing any of them, I proceed to act like we’ve been friends for years and pat all of them on the back while commenting that they all look so damn good I’d probably be going home with one of them. No one seems to find this funny. [7]

Mood Check (2)(1.7) – 1 = 2.4. These kids, as suspected, blow ass.

8:30 PM

The class rep, who I have never so much as batted an eye at, shakes my hand and introduces me, by name, to his girlfriend. This kid’s a fucking blowhard. He told the entire class, without prompt, that he was a third generation student of our particular school. His campaign for class rep was based on the premise that he would get someone to come in and make sure our swivel chairs didn’t swivel as much. I voted for everyone on the ballot except him. I told him I thought it was so thoughtful and sincere that he could remember the names of so many people he had never actually spoken to. He thought this was a compliment. His girlfriend looked like she had had sex in a lot of Fraternity showers.

Mood Check (2)(1.9) + 3 = 6.8. Belittling other people without their knowledge is, for me, pretty close to sex as far as gratification goes.

9:00

Actually strike up a conversation with some of the more decent-seeming people - a girl who sits next to me in class and a buddy of hers. Good folks. Turns out they dislike all the same people as I do. This is fantastic. It’s also done at over ten beers, so the conversation is loud, frantic and probably overheard by many of the people it’s directed at.

I don’t have time to explain all of them, but I think a nice, brief list of some of the names we applied to them should demonstrate to you our level of respect/the probable level of respect these people deserve: Flappy Hands, Tweak, the bitch with the terrible voice, the old lady who loves big black cock, the blue bloods (proper Frankenstein, kid with two sticks up his ass, bitch girl I’d have sex with, blonde with lisp I’d have sex with)[8], loud righteous slut, and the sloppy tits.

(7)(2.1) + 5 = 19.7. This is by far as good as I will feel all night.

9:30

The problem with my drinking prowess is that I often mistake 'drunk' for 'buzzed' and 'shitcanned' for 'drunk.' This where I reach what I previously referred to as “infinity.” It’s so aptly called because usually at 10+ beers my potential for stupidity rises at an exponential rate.[9] Ergo, my “potential” to do something I regret is infinite. There are some things that there are no “potential” of anymore, though:

• Making friends
• Maintaining the respect of the friends I already have
• Getting Laid

I’ll demonstrate this by saying that, at this point in the night, I am now explaining to the girl who sits next to me in class that I think her friend is hot and has large breasts. I am making the large breast hand maneuver and pointing at said friend.[10]

Here is where we can start using my drunkenness as detriment. Also, we need two extenuating circumstance modifiers - one for how awesome it felt to talk about this hot chick in the moment and one for how not awesome it felt two seconds later to realize I’d been talking about her right in front of her.

Mood Check: (10)(0.8) +5 – 7 = 6

10:00 PM

The party is supposed to be over. I am officially obliterated at what most people would call an early hour of the evening - particularly as it is a Thursday and the professor who I have just stumbled past says “see you in class tomorrow!”

The kids I am with inform me that they are going to a bar and I tell them I have to go get my coat. As I fight through the crowd I lose sight of them but bump into a girl who went to college with me. I know her but she doesn’t know really know or care to know me.[11] She apparently is going to same bar as these other people, so I ask if I can follow her as I have no idea where I’m going. This girl is smashed and takes her goddamn time getting her act together. I feign forgetting the name of the bar 3 or 4 times before I decide, 'fuck it, I’m braving the wilds of “Notoriously Dangerous City in Which I Attend School.”'

After a misguided shamble through some lovely urban environments, I see one of the girls from my class outside of a bar.

I actually ended up having a good time here, so good that I manage to spend 35 dollars on drinks for people I don’t know, lose my only nice sports jacket, and miss the last train out of “Notoriously Dangerous City in Which I Attend School.”

Mood Check: ∞

11:00 PM

 I am now at the apartment of some kid in my class taking bong rips with a kid who sits in front of me in contracts class and a member of the mock trial team. I know this doesn’t seem surreal to a lot of people, but when your only other experience with a person is hearing them talk about the doctrine of “respondiet superior”, shit gets weird real quick. Somewhere between laughing my ass off at this strange realization (without explaining it to anyone else in the room) and curling up in a suit on a 2X5 foot air mattress, I realized I had a great time.

8:00 AM

I am no longer having a great time. The kid whose apartment I crashed at wants to go to class. I then realize I am in the very same class. I am wearing a full suit and tie (minus sports jacket) and dress shoes. I have no idea where I am in “Notoriously Dangerous City in Which I Attend School” and a total of 3 dollars to my name. I quickly thank the kid and walk 25 minutes to train station in weather that can only be described as 'fitting to my general mood.'

Post Script:

What I thought was a nice little attempt at being friendly with some kids in my class has probably only turned me from “the kid in the back of the class who looks angry all the time” to “the kid in the back of the class who is definitely angry and doesn’t hold his booze very well.” I still have no friends at law school.