New Year’s Eve is supposedly the most vibrant, drunken night of each year, annually gathering most of the world in simultaneous parties. It even has a new film titled in its honour, although admittedly, with Zac Efron in a starring role, it is debatable whether it is any good. This all makes it seem like a wonderful evening, but is the unwritten rule of ‘You must party on New Year’s Eve,’ in fact just forcing us to fake fun?
This may seem like a very cynical view of a celebratory night, but to demonstrate, this is how I have spent my past three New Year’s Eves. A common way to welcome the new year is to throw a house party, but the important occasion in this case meant my home was turned into a dwelling full of too-drunk teenagers who vomited black, yes, black sick up the walls. The month after, we were still repainting. My night was spent running around taking ornaments from the hands of intoxicated friends and kneeing boys in the direction of the poor, poor bathroom. The problem with New Years Eve is that you feel you have to do something for it, but that night I spent most of my time panicking by the washing machine and wishing I could just go to bed.
So after learning from this mistake, my next year was spent planning to stay in, on my own, watching DVDs. From this image, a lot of you will realise how sad I am, but the horrors of the previous year were still imprinted on my mind, and the lumps in the vomit were still imprinted on my walls. However, come 9 o’clock, the fear of not going out on New Year’s Eve dragged me to the local pub. Although a few friends were there, waiting around in a chewing-gum stained chair until the appropriate hour after midnight to leave to achieve at least some cool points meant for a rather boring night of yet again, forcing ourselves to do something we weren’t in the mood for. All I longed for was my sofa, my box set of The O.C. and, dare I say it, a cup of tea.
So for the third year, I had definitely learned. I was going to the casino to bet my 10p’s away and then home just after midnight. However, come 11 o’clock, and despite how quiet it was, me and my friends ended up going into town on an alcohol induced whim. Yet, for the first time, we had not succumbed to the forced fun of the New Year, and were not pressuring ourselves to make it the best night ever when it would not be, and however boring our night on a deserted town may have seemed to those throwing up at house parties, our desire to ignore the New Year’s conventions made for the best eve so far.
Now, I know to those who do enjoy a bit of vomit paint work, and to those who start planning their next New Year’s Eve on New Year’s Day, my tales of New Year’s annoyance will probably annoy you too. However, I guarantee that at some point, the pressure to have an amazing night will mean that New Year’s Eve will not be as good as you had built it up to be. Even the partiers of Times Square on the main night will have moments of unbelievable coldness and a desire for a duvet and hot chocolate. Therefore, I am simply suggesting that from now on, we must not be ashamed if our New Year’s Eves are not as good as they ‘should’ be. Sometimes, the most dull New Year’s Eve plans or even lack of plans will turn into the best, and no one can tell you any different. Especially when they spend their New Year’s Day mopping alcohol-scented vomit from their floors. But then again, that does sound like they had fun getting into that state.
