The rituals of the drunk

A perspective from the morning after
Whilst talking to some friends about drinking the other day (cos that's what all the kids talk about, apparently), I was posed the question, "So, what kind of drunk are you?"
Ah, the ultimate judge of character. From that one night (or day, depending on your Man Points), the casual observer will completely know the ins and outs of you, even if you have no idea what's what at that particular moment, depending on what kind of drunk you are. I was thrown by this question. Previous to this moment, I had never been completely munted. Yes, I've had the occasional drink (prior to my coming of age, I'd never sought out drinks. that involved too much effort), but not to the point of head-to-gutter contact. I didn't know what kind of drunk I was.
At this point, I should clarify the Official Categories of Drunk (amended 2004). From what I can remember of this charter, the categories of drunk include: Happy ("Woo, beer!"), Hyperactive ("beerbeerbeeberbeerberrbeer..."etc.), Angry (*punchy**hurty*), Handsy ("Iluvyabudyyyy"*grope*), Dancer/Dancing Queen ([rhythm not found]); Depressed (*unhappy*), and Sleazy ("Oi! WannaRoot?"). If I'm forgetting anything, add the other categories to the comments.
I was confused. If I don't know what kind of drunk I am, I know nothing of myself (apparently). So to notch up some miles along the path of self-enlightenment, I joined a few people I knew and went out for a night of drinking to the point of self-abuse (not the happy-ending self abuse, I must point out). I am pleased to announce that I am a Big Boy now! I'm not gonna go into too many details, as frequent viewers will already know of the juicy details.

"What kind of drunk are you?" There's that question again. Though after going through that night, replaying my surroundings and my behaviour over and over again, this question is kind of inaccurate. It isn't like you immediately become a completely different person, or a caricature that can be lumped into a few categories (human complexities are fun(!)).
Rather, I found that people still remain themselves when they become somewhat schickered; just more extreme versions of themselves. Examples are go: Not a fan of dance music when sober, you'll despise the stuff when smashed; That girl/guy you kinda have an interest for will become your One True Love after a few several glasses; All your opinions will become The Law if you're dancing the drunken shuffle. And so on, and so forth. It's like watching someone through a magnifying glass: Their characteristics and behaviour are demonstrated with broad strokes, rather than fine brushes.
So in a way, you could be thrown into the Categories of Drunk, but this is merely an easier way to describe a person and their normal behaviour. A happy drunk will usually be a steady person with nothing to worry about. The angry and depressed drunk will usually have a few small, niggling issues that they have to deal with. The sleazy drunk will in real life be a fucking wanker who needs to grow up already and lose that fucking ego. Etcetera.

What's just as fun, I found, is the morning after, when the Sensible You wakes up and hears about the crazy times Drunk You got up to the previous night. And let me tell you, Sensible You, like the average mother, won't like any of the stuff Drunk You did. What did you do? You told the other children what? Why did you punch that guy? What did I tell you about flopping your wang out in public? After this scolding, Sensible You will just go ahead and punish the hell out of Drunk You. The other Yous watch on, curious as to what the maternal is doing. She's still raging on, however, and she'll swing her rage towards these nosy Yous. Punishments will be handed out left, right and centre, leaving everyone with a headache, as well as that sick felling of guilt.
After this lesson in authority, you're left with Sensible You's words lingering in your head (as well as the aftertaste of sick in your mouth), replaying the previous night to the soundtrack of those words. Much of the time, you wince as to what you did the previous night. But in some cases, you are, for the lack of a better word, proud of what you got up to, what Drunk You did what Rational You couldn't have done in normal life. It depends really. The really fun bit, though, comes afterwards, when you act on what went on that night. Do you re-introduce yourself to those friendly people you met last night? How do you handle those personal secrets people handed over to you? Do you chase up that new phone number in your collection?

Agoraphobia: Fear of (My)Space

...be my friend?
Ladies, gentlemen and etc. I am a changed man. I have played the part of the sheep and joined the many, many folk and jumped on the latest Internet fad. That's right, I've got me a MySpace account. Please don't hate me

Why, I hear you (i.e. myself) ask? Considering the potential risks I put to myself by parading my ego on such a site, what with all the MySpace fights (just like a normal fight, but a lot nerdier) and impostor accounts and whatnot. But I've taken several hits for this blog (note to self: insert hits here in future), so for you, loyal readers, I'm willing to take another one. That, and I was peer pressured into getting one.

Three months into creating my Area of Narcissism Mk 2, I'm still dumbfounded as to that particular factor that makes it so addictive for the children, like MSN Messenger did back in the day. Or crack. There have been a few things that have caught my eye, though.

For one, there does seem to be a morbid obsession concerning friend counts. At the moment, I have a total of 23 friends. Yet I see accounts which have friends ranging into the thousands. There's even this one guy who has 149,079,780 friends. He must be a super cool person if so many people are friends with him. Even I'm one of his friends, and I can't even recall meeting him. He's just that awesome, I presume. Some narks reckon though that he is automatically added as a friend when you create your account. But those people just can't handle the AwesomeSauce that is Tom.
It isn't only people with lots of friends that garner lots of attention. There was a curious project that I tripped upon one day in my miscellaneous Internet adventures (yes, I managed to force myself off MySpace for more than five seconds): The SportsRacer Holiday MySpace Adoption Program. It was a call to arms on The Show With Ze Frank for viewers to nominate people with very few MySpace friends for a mass adoption. Wanna know how that ended up? (*this is a spoiler alert. do not panic. look away calmly if you do not want to know the results. avert your eyes if you treasure your innocence. this is a spoiler alert. you have been warned*) The adoptees were freaked out (*that was a spoiler alert. return to your normal lives, or however normal it can be*)
Which raises the question? Why the hooha over how many friends you have? Sure it may provide a platform to meet old people you may have lost contact with or, for more advanced players, to even meet new people. Though I willing to assume that for many MySpace users, the friends count is there to brag to your other friends how many friends you have. I can imagine the schoolyard (cat)fights now:
Kid A: Hey, someone wants to add me as their friend. That brings the count up to 50,000. Hooray! Hey Kid B, I've just got me 50,000 friends.
Kid B: Only 50,000. You're such a loser. I've got 435,678 friends. Much better than your piece of shit.
Kid A: Oh yeah. Well on my old MySpace account, I had 1,543,435 friends.
Kid B: Nuh uh, assface.
Kid A: Uh huh, turdburgler.
Me: Settle down kids. Sure you may have lots of "friends" (to self: i'm guessing it's the razor sharp wit that attracts them), but how many of these so called friends do you actually know and keep in constant contact with?
(beat)
Kid B: I was in contact with your mum, last night.
Me: Why you litt - (Censored. there may be actual people reading this. i can't expose them to gratuitous violence, unless they request it...)
(Cleaning self up)
My point is, it isn't the number of friends that count, it's the time and effort that you spend with people that determines whether they are your true friends or not. That and year 8 and 9 kids can bee annoying little shits at times (but we all knew that already, didn't we?)

There's also seems to be this mentality of getting your MySpace space, throwing shit, faeces and more shit onto it, and basically seeing what sticks (case in point - not recommended for people with slow computers, epilepsy or eyes). You know who I blame for all this, MTV. Damn them with their R&B video clips and their varying degrees of celebrity. Also, damn them for turning the word "pimp" into a verb and popularising the thing. Thanks to them, it's suddenly hip* to go medieval on one's MySpace page, hurling whatever music, movies, images of people onto their pages.
In some cases, it's alright. It lets you know what the person is all about. But in other cases, it's the equivalent of the middle-aged businessman or car geek buying and p-word-ing a really big sports car, overcompensating for something. I'll leave that something up to you reader folk. Comment on that, if you will.


Despite this, there's got to be some perverse delights to be gotten from MySpace other than by pleasuring yourself (in a G-rated above-the-pants way, of course**) by viewing your own profile and watching the profile views part grow.
Well, there is the opportunity to post on your friend's comments page. However, this would probably result in a conversation via the comments page, for all the public to see. It'll like eavesdropping, except you only get to hear one side of the conversation. So many comments that can be taken out of context.
I'm still waiting for the day I see a really exciting comments page conversation. I've already mentioned the organised fights. Bring on the one-sided stalking, relationship starts, relationship ends and marriage proposals, I say. In fact, here's a game to play. Get a one-sided conversation (a least 5-comments long) and make up the other side of it. an example will be provided as soon as I can be bothered.

Well, I'm past that three month anniversary of the New Me: The pimped-up, friend laden, publicly exposed me. Here's to another few months of MySpace before me and my short attention span get inevitably get over MySpa - Ooh, look at the bright orange colours! Hehehehe! LOL!!!! RMAO!!!!!!1!!

More MySpace analysis to come.
P.S. Sorry if I seem to be really cynical and jaded of the experience. I'm just feeling a little lonely right now. After all, I only have 23 friends, according to MySpace...

Some other MySpace pages:
The stereotypical TB***
(imagine something worthy of EPIC LULZ here)


*By using that word, I have now officially lost all hope of ever being considered legitimately cool and popular (that's misleading. that statement assumes I ever had a chance of being popular and cool in the first place)

**Unless it's on Tuesday nights, in which case, the safety word this time is Triangle

***That's Teeny-Bopper btw, not Tuberculosis