MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - I am officially too old for this shit

> We’ve got a couple of grads at work. One of them is way too eager to make a good
> impression. So he gave a blanket invitation to his 21st to everyone in the office. It
> isn’t a big office so even if everyone showed up, it wouldn’t have been the end of
> the world for him. Most of us couldn’t be arsed going, because we’re way older than
> him, and it’d be like being his dad at his 21st, but if none of us showed up it’d be
> like we were all snubbing his invite, which would be rude. So I took one for the team
> and showed up.
>
> It started at a pub where he had an open tab for guests, and it was actually OK. I
> was chatting with some of his mates about photography and options trading. Then it
> moved to some nightclub in the casino complex. I really shouldn’t have moved on with
> them.
>
> The first challenge was actually getting into the place. There are so many fucking
> queues, depending on whether you’re on the guest list, have a pre-purchased ticket,
> or are just trying to get in or some shit. Ironically the general admission queue
> seemed to move faster than the guest list queue. The guy checking my ID seemed to
> think I was possibly drunk – said it looked like I was near the end of my rope. I
> told him honestly that it was just because I'm too old for this shit, and tired from
> being in the office from eight to six every day, and I wouldn’t be there if my friend
> wasn’t turning 21. He seemed satisfied with the answer, and let me buy a ticket and
> go in. Chalk one up to being honest.
>
> So I got out on the dance floor with my “friends” of whom I knew exactly one person.
> I swear I was at least a decade older than anyone else there. They had a couple of
> DJs, but they were shit; DJs at any decent club in Darlinghurst are better. They had
> a couple of go-go dancers on the stage, but they were crap, too. You see better go-go
> dancing at any DH bar in Wan Chai (HK). One of the guys is like, “Make the most of
> it, you only live once!” indicating that I should grind up against some of the girls
> in the group. I kinda went through the motions of it, but grinding with a 20-year-old
> girl I only met a couple of hours ago doesn’t really feel meaningful.
>
> Now the dance floor is pretty crowded, so moving around can be a bit of an issue.
> Most people are pretty reasonable about it, but there’s always one. He didn’t try to
> get past, he tried to walk through me, and I just didn’t move. He got really fucking
> pissed off, and his mate pulled on my shirt a bit from behind. I just ignored them,
> but they decided to come back some time later. One of them yanked my shirt from the
> front so all the buttons came off, and the pissed off one told me to, “Get out of
> here in three seconds or I’m going to kick your fucking arse.” I just ignored him,
> but I was kinda worried about getting kicked out for having my shirt open.
>
> Turned out I didn't need to worry. Being unable to button up my shirt seemed to make
> people think I was just so epically self-assured that I was going around with my
> chest hair showing. (In actual fact I was horribly embarrassed about revealing how
> little attention I pay to keeping my abs in shape.)
>
> The guys came back later to tell me to, “Apologise in three seconds or I’ll break
> your fucking back.” These guys really seemed to have a thing for “three seconds” and
> prefixing body parts with “fucking” for emphasis. Too bad they weren’t actually any
> good at delivering on threats. I think they actually wanted me to hit them first so
> I’d get kicked out or something, since the buttonless shirt hadn’t slowed me down. I
> just laughed out loud. They slapped me a couple of times, but that was the best they
> could deliver. It didn’t even hurt.
>
> At some point a couple of bouncers crossed the dance floor for some reason. They
> seemed to be coming right for me, so I thought I was in trouble for my open shirt,
> but they just wanted to go past. I joked to a bouncer on the way out, “I swear this
> shirt had buttons when you let me in!” He laughed and wanted to hear the story. Some
> beat cops I passed on the way home also wanted to hear the story.
>
> So I’m still not really drunk, I’m even more tired than I was at the beginning of the
> evening, I need to buy a new shirt, and the whole experience was strangely
> unsatisfying. I’m too old to party with the kids.

I would have swung first. Guess I've got less of a tolerance than you...

Story hijack:

About 15 years back, my cousin ditched out on his girlfriend and a Shania Twain concert. I offered to go with her for the hell of it, and knew some of the others going with her so it seemed like fun. We went all out, cowboy boots 'n hats, even put some twang in our voice the entire night.

I go to get a few beers around 5 songs in. I come back, and two random guys are giving a few of the girls a hard time. Nothing severe, just your typical drunk asshole hitting on a clearly not interested girl. As I get closer with beers in hand, I let out a twangy "Ya'll having a problem here?". One of the dudes two-hand pushes me back, I lose all four beers. I look at the spilled beer on the ground, look up, and outright flatten the guy with my fist. He gets up after a moment, and we start at it. Security comes, we both get dragged away.

We managed to convince security that we were both friends just screwing around and took it too far (I had never met this dude). They let us back into the concert, and the guy actually buys a bunch of replacement beers. He ended up with our group the rest of the show, decent dude it turns out.

Thinking back on it, I can't help but wonder why that can't happen today. It seems like back in the day you could get into a knock-out brawl, settle your differences, and then have a drink over the whole deal. Today people just seem to hold a grudge, and that sucks.