The friends that mend small town fever
I fibbed a little bit on my visit to the midnight pub last night. Except, not quite. I chipped in and admitted I was stricken with tonsillitis, so had no plans to celebrate the New Years. My phone buzzed soon after, and I was off with booze spilling out of my backpack and fluffy armour against the blistering cold.
And so that New Year's Eve was spent with some friends at one of their houses, exchanging drunken questions from Pinterest drinking games. We never get too drunk, and I moderate my drinking quite significantly to avoid misfortune, but it was a fun amount to ease into how awkward some of those drinking game questions were. Some important context: I'm the only femme of the group,1 and the only person in a relationship. These questions ranged from, "what's a fact people here don't know," to, "who in the group would you do XYZ to?" yikes. It wasn't all bad, and we could laugh most of it off. But, yikes.
Bryan tried to play I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace, after I joked about how I was their biggest fan back in the day. Not my tea anymore, but it's really funny to look back at old favourites like that. He invited me and Fletcher to a metal concert this April, so I'm excited for those plans.
It's always nice hanging around those guys. This town is alright, but like many towns it can be a Bermuda Triangle if you don't get out soon enough. I really don't enjoy the prolonged periods spent here away from campus, but those guys are a good break from the mundanity of it all. Sure, you could say a town is only as mundane as people like me perceiving it as such. But everyone I know who's stayed here stay, and are miserable doing so. I want to retire here, but there's more for me out there. Not necessarily big plans, Norwich is one of the best cities for me personally because it's big enough but equally peaceful (relative to other cities), for example. Fletcher and I may elope and I might hang about Chicago for a bit. Not for all my life, I don't think, but the option is there for me to seize.
I'm rambling, but the point is, my friends I do have here appreciate me enough to involve me in last minute plans like these, and I'm grateful for that.
There was a question in one of the drinking games that had us sharing a song with the most emotional significance to us. I could probably come up with various answers, but my mind first turned to November. It's ultimately about the beauty of getting high, but I've always perceived it as just the wanderlust of existence, in some of the lyrics but especially the instrumentation. It's a beautiful song either way.2
Reply via email! ✰ First published 01/01/2024 and last modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago.
In that instance. Ying seems both the kind to celebrate with her family and to not travel alone on a late night for some booze at a moment's notice. And Mia we never get to see anymore. The last time we got to spend any time together was Summer 2022. I'm adding this footnote in March 2024 and have since invited her to Fortnite. She hasn't responded. Maybe that's my fault for finding Fortnite the best means to reconnect with people.↩
After we all shared, there was a group consensus that I was the least troubled one of the group. That might very well be true. But it does sting a little to remember how averse I am to letting myself be vulnerable to people nowadays. Maybe I'd be able to hold onto more close friends. But maybe that would be guilt-tripping. My conscience thus despises.↩