Why Do We Do It?

Not the drinking thing, we all know why we do that! It's fun at the time and loosens us up. No, what I'm asking is why you stop doing it so much as you get a bit older?

Well, there's the obvious answer of not being able to handle the hangovers any more. Time was - in the dim and distant past - you could go out on the lash, drink your bodyweight in cider & black, dance your ass off, stagger home at around 4am and still get up and work a shift in Tesco. Oh no longer! These days 2 glasses of wine on a school night seems to give you a sore head and a mouth like bum in the morning. God forbid you go out on a bender at the weekend, you'll have a 2 day hangover for doing that. The severity of your hangover always seems to be disproportionate to the amount of alcohol you drank as well. As I said, 2 glasses and you feel like the proverbial pig shat in your head.

I have also come to the conclusion that you can't handle the embarrassment of undignified behaviour any more either. In your heady youth the things that would make you cringe with embarrassment were, in no particular order (and I haven't done all of these!):

What you woke up next to in the morning (animal, vegetable or mineral)
The memory of discussing your bra size with your pervy older work colleagues
Being sick on yourself
Being sick on somebody else
Stealing pointless items (traffic cones, posters, etc. Not glasses, glasses are always useful)
Snogging inappropriate people
etc. etc. etc.

I tend not to do such outrageous things these days but my embarrassment threshold has certainly lowered over the years. I went to a party on Saturday evening and am having painful flashbacks to singing karaoke very badly and clutching the hostess while giving her advice on her man troubles... and the advice I gave her was "F*ck him! F*ck him in his stupid ass!" Oh. My. God. Apparently this was the right advice to give at the time but I'm still a little embarrassed because I was standing in the middle of the hallway and said it very loudly at least 3 times.

Oh, and all I seem to be able to talk to strangers about these days is my views on corporal punishment. Luckily on this occasion the lady I was talking to totally agreed with me but I have to admit, I'm even starting to bore myself! Maybe it's not my fault though? I don't want to talk about mortgages or babies or cars or tax breaks or golf or weddings or holidays or any of that. What are you left with? The eternal Alien Vs Predator debate (that's now been answered. It's Predator in case you're wondering, but I suspect only because the film makers imbued them with some human stupidity) and coporal punishment. My embarrassment threshold won't really let me talk to complete strangers about more interesting (and intimate) subjects. Sigh.

I watched La Dolce Vita this weekend and one scene, where Marcello and his crazy ass fiancee go to the party of an intellectual friend, stuck in my mind. There they all are, sitting around being incredibly bohemian and Italian and intellectual, and having wonderfully artistic and philosophical discussions. I was quite jealous. There again, this was a portrayal of unspeakably cool people living in Rome in the 60s so it's probably natural to be jealous. Sigh. The kind of parties I seem to end up at are the ones like the last one of the film - decadence and drunkeness and boredom. Bah!

Hey ho. One drunken idea I had that still seems like a pretty good idea in the cold light of day is a fancy dress party for my birthday. You have been warned....