In Which I Go Out Sober and Succeed

After last weekend's going-out debacle, I was anticipating shutting myself away this weekend in a sober, angry, me-against-the-drunk-world funk. Then I found out that the ol' college newspaper crew was going to be in NYC for a one-night-only limited-engagement reunion, and there was no way in hell I was going to miss that. Let me explain. First, although I went to school in the city, after graduation a lot of my friends moved away to such far-flung outposts as the Carolinas, Washington, D.C., Africa, and the Bronx. Second, our college newspaper experience bonded us through extreme shared misery, dedication, insanity, and cohabitation in a TV-sitcom-worthy downtown loft. We worked ungodly hours, perpetuated much drama amongst ourselves, and toiled away dutifully night after night because we were young, idealistic, and possibly insane. But it was all justified because we, the select few, were upholding the highest standards of journalistic integrity and keeping our fellow students informed! At least, that's what we told ourselves when we were trying to close the paper and it was 3 a.m. and half of us had a 9:30 a.m. class and oops, the server just crashed. Third, the fact that this group of uber-geeks managed to find one another in the social wasteland that was my giant, scattered urban university is fairly notable. You could say that if you picked out the dorkiest dorks from a random selection of gifted-and-talented elementary school programs in the country, those kids would grow up to be us. I mean that in the most endearing way possible, and lovingly include myself as a dorky dork.

Basically, over the course of three or four years, I got to know this group of around ten people better than my own family. When I heard we were meeting at our old bar haunt in the East Village—our go-to spot because for many years they didn't check IDs and we loved a certain Portuguese waitress—I decided to swallow my crippling self-consciousness and just go, figuring these people had seen me in far more disastrous states over the past six years.

Lo and behold, I had a great time. Not only was it fantastic that everyone showed up and played nice and caught up on the past few years of gossip, but I realized how much I really, truly admire and respect my friends. We've gone from awkward, tortured college kids to...awkward, tortured adults. Mostly joking. I would say that all things considered, we're growing up to be pretty badass grown-ups. A lot of us actually have the jobs we dreamed about when we were snot-nosed freshmen, or we're getting there fast. My newspaper buddies are scary-smart, hilarious, and worldly. We've gotten a little older, maybe shed some of our blind ideals, but we've still got that shared bond—that sense that those years of newspaper work important and weredid make a difference—that seems to be lacking among so many of my peers. I think that's one of the reasons why the fact that I wasn't drinking on Friday night didn't even raise an eyebrow. More important, I didn't even notice. We talked about the election and current events and our sex lives (some things never change), and we retold juicy stories. As much as I tend to complain about my college experience as having been impersonal and a waste of money, I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. Somehow my friends and I managed to eke out some really great relationships revolving around something that wasn't partying, and even though we're now dispersed around the world, we haven't lost that bond. It makes me comfortable around them, as if I don't have to prove my worth or humor or attractiveness or partying abilities. Which is, unfortunately, how I do feel around some of my other, more current peers.

So in conclusion, thanks to the newspaper crew for quelling my social anxieties for the weekend, and giving me hope that as long as I stick around the right people, even if they're considered idealistic dorks by some standards, my social life might thrive after all—drinking or no drinking.