Measurements Of Man
So this weekend, there is a gathering, of sorts, in my old stomping grounds. To be more specific: The grade school I attended is celebrating a big anniversary like 80 or 100 (definitely less than 150) and former students and past parishioners of the church are invited to attend (provided they r.s.v.p of course).
The good news is that there will be a cash bar. This isn't a "Yay! Booze!" good thing, but rather a "Yay not an open bar and Rich unable to control his need to take advantage of an open bar" Rich + Open Bar = Puking Nastiness and probably mass consumption of other peoples cigarettes. I was hoping to save "Rich Gets Sloppy Night" for some time around my thirty first birthday. (To be followed by Rich has a hangover morning and my all time favorite Rich's hangover memory highlights game: where Rich remembers some of the really stupid things he did while inebriated, things he normally keeps well repressed on a day to day basis, and he almost, but not quite, wishes to die of shame. I just can not take the hangovers any more).
The strangeness factor is the entire thing where one sees people one went to school with, or worse yet their parents. (The parents feel the need to corner you and relate the entire life history of all of their wonderful children. They leave out all the good stuff like drugs, sex, rehab, children out of wedlock, and of course homosexuality. They jsut go on and on about their wonderful kinds when you know for a fact that the kids were jerks and stupid at that). You can spend your entire life without seeing the people you went to grade school with, but because you have spent so much time with em, they are the yardstick by which you measure your life's accomplishments. Then there is the entire who got fat? Who is still fat? Who lost weight? Who lost hair? Thing. You don't want to be so terribly shallow, but that kind of morbid curiosity cannot be helped. One's sense of supperiority needs feeding.
The best and worst part about these occasions is the gossip about absent members. Everyone has heard a story, or was at a bar where they saw so and so. Ninety percent of the rumors are probably false, but you never know. Maybe this guy was in rehab. Maybe that girl is in jail for killing her boyfriend. I'd like to make up stories, but I have no idea about who keeps in touch with who, so the chance exists that I could be caught lying. Such is life.
Then there is the entire meat market aspect. My parents see other parents here and there at weddings and showers and they talk. People find out that I'm single and they all think which daughter would be appropriate. With so many failed marriages, they look at me and say, "He may be unemployed, but the losers our daughters dated/ married, force us to overlook such minor problems. We know you. We know your family. We know where you came from. Please come speak to my daughter." Ok it may not be quite like that but it's close. If it were up to the parents to decide I'd be in arranged marriage by Sunday night.
In Summary: Rich gets sloppy night will be some time this December. All Chicagoans leave your calendar open. We can not escape the phantoms of our childhood schoolmates. I'd be a hot commodity if this were a feudal place with arranged marriages.
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The good news is that there will be a cash bar. This isn't a "Yay! Booze!" good thing, but rather a "Yay not an open bar and Rich unable to control his need to take advantage of an open bar" Rich + Open Bar = Puking Nastiness and probably mass consumption of other peoples cigarettes. I was hoping to save "Rich Gets Sloppy Night" for some time around my thirty first birthday. (To be followed by Rich has a hangover morning and my all time favorite Rich's hangover memory highlights game: where Rich remembers some of the really stupid things he did while inebriated, things he normally keeps well repressed on a day to day basis, and he almost, but not quite, wishes to die of shame. I just can not take the hangovers any more).
The strangeness factor is the entire thing where one sees people one went to school with, or worse yet their parents. (The parents feel the need to corner you and relate the entire life history of all of their wonderful children. They leave out all the good stuff like drugs, sex, rehab, children out of wedlock, and of course homosexuality. They jsut go on and on about their wonderful kinds when you know for a fact that the kids were jerks and stupid at that). You can spend your entire life without seeing the people you went to grade school with, but because you have spent so much time with em, they are the yardstick by which you measure your life's accomplishments. Then there is the entire who got fat? Who is still fat? Who lost weight? Who lost hair? Thing. You don't want to be so terribly shallow, but that kind of morbid curiosity cannot be helped. One's sense of supperiority needs feeding.
The best and worst part about these occasions is the gossip about absent members. Everyone has heard a story, or was at a bar where they saw so and so. Ninety percent of the rumors are probably false, but you never know. Maybe this guy was in rehab. Maybe that girl is in jail for killing her boyfriend. I'd like to make up stories, but I have no idea about who keeps in touch with who, so the chance exists that I could be caught lying. Such is life.
Then there is the entire meat market aspect. My parents see other parents here and there at weddings and showers and they talk. People find out that I'm single and they all think which daughter would be appropriate. With so many failed marriages, they look at me and say, "He may be unemployed, but the losers our daughters dated/ married, force us to overlook such minor problems. We know you. We know your family. We know where you came from. Please come speak to my daughter." Ok it may not be quite like that but it's close. If it were up to the parents to decide I'd be in arranged marriage by Sunday night.
In Summary: Rich gets sloppy night will be some time this December. All Chicagoans leave your calendar open. We can not escape the phantoms of our childhood schoolmates. I'd be a hot commodity if this were a feudal place with arranged marriages.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 12:45 AM
2 Comments:
Hey, Japan is a fully modern, first world nation that still does arranged marriages, though now its little more than internet dating with someone getting paid a lot of money to match up profiles because the Japanese are too indirect to make those kind of moves on their own behalf...in any case, I don't know about the happiness quotient, but I've heard that they are more successful in terms of divorce-rate than the traditional love match.
i agree with sweetpotato--i didn't like most of those people and they didn't like me. Besides, my little sister has been dating one of them for years and i actually think he's a good person (was certainly not then). I think that is good enough.
Best of luck with the parental hook-up! oh, and arranged marriages are still around, just not talked about.
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