Red Wedding

The next several paragraphs I write at very great personal risk. It has nothing to do with the fact that I JUST started a new job with nobody I know, but because I am going to outline my weekend plans for you, and I must confess, my intentions are cruel.

So I have this wedding on Saturday, in Illinois. Not only is it a wedding but it's a frat wedding. A guy from my frat is hanging out with a girl from a sorority we used to hang out with. I have MASSIVE expectations, in fact to set the stage, let me briefly incapsulate the last time something like this happened.

In August 2009, my first pledge brother got married. I kicked the day off by smashing a case of beer at my pool with a couple of buddies and then threw on a seersucker suit and a fresh pair of Air Force Ones. I then forced my mother at Jaegerpoint (where you threaten to drink a bottle of Jaeger and drive somewhere if the accosted doesn't do your bidding) to drive my drunk ass from Geist to Carmel so I could go to this wedding. At said wedding I proceeded to drink triple whiskey cokes and aggressively grind with every girl from that sorority I had ever hooked up with until the bar ran out of booze. Then we cabbed it to broad ripple, drank until the bars stopped serving me and then recruited my mother to drive me, 3 buddies and a very lucky girl back to the Indianapolis Yacht Club where we proceeded to drink for 4 more hours and then pass out on a boat. In fact my last memory was finishing a bottle of blue Boone's Farm and watching the sun rise while two of my pals took turns getting to 2nd base with the aforementioned girl. It was magnificent.

When I woke up it felt like we had just been to a really awesome frat party with a wedding theme, but when the dust cleared one of my friends was married. And so began the slow desolation of my single buddies that eventually began to drop like flies.

So sure that was 4 years ago...mere days after graduation, who could fault us for acting like we were still in college?

Flash forward to this past Saturday, I am in a field of 60,000 people wearing my 5th Halloween costume of the season with my took firmly down the throat of a Junior at Chico State.

Her: "Do you want more?"

Me: "Uh, I probably shouldn't"

Her: "You want to be peaking during Skrillex."

Me: "Ok, fuck it..."

Reach into her bag and throw down one more "moon rock."

See while most people that will be attending this wedding were probably planning out their outfit or spending some quality time with their plus one, I was rolling my balls off and trying to find a secluded place at this rave to go fuck this 21 year old corpse bride before "Bangarang" came on.

So ya...not much has changed.

But it leads me to question how this weekend will play out.

The Hollywood version obviously has the bad boy from the west coast showing up without a date looking for a one night stand until he connects with some girl from his past with whom he always shared a romantic tension but the timing was never right. (Depending on how big this wedding is, there are probably at least 3 candidates for this) They spend all night talking about the past and future and what a shame it was that they never got together. They share a passionate slow dance and right before they kiss...HER douchebag boyfriend shows up. It's time to head back to the hotel babe.

Our protagonist is heart broken but then when he is at the airport the next day HE SITS DOWN NEXT TO HER ON HIS PLANE BACK TO LA.

Him: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

Her: I don't know.

Him: What happened to (thinks of douchey name) Ted?

Her: Ya it wasn't gonna work out

He doesn't say anything, but grabs her hand and smiles as they both travel off into the great unknown. The credits roll and a Shins song plays.

But that won't happen because...

A. Respectable young women don't like to associate with guys that lost their wallet whilst skinny dipping at 4am last Thursday.

B. I am not Dermot Mulroney (or Dylan McDermott?)

In fact, a far more likely scenario is that I show up and every girl there has a date and I feel like a massive tool that is until I find the younger sister of the bride's long lost cousin bored at the bar.  Game on.

See at first glimpse I am extremely interesting and appear to have my shit together. I write. I work on a television show, I live near the beach in Los Angeles, I'm 6 foot 3 and I haven't gotten fat yet. I'm basically god to all bored distant cousin's younger sisters out there. The key to my success is to keep it extremely vague. We don't have to bring up the fact that I'm 26, I write on a blog that averages a couple hundred viewers, I'm still an assistant or that I chose to not fix my air conditioning all summer in order to have more money for drugs.

Eh...details.

But then again, is that fulfilling? Is that how I want people to view me? Weddings are also a sort of check-in game. See how everyone is doing. If you're a girl it's about how much weight you've gained, if you've stopped working yet and how big your ring is. If you're a guy it's about what your job is, how hot is your date and if you still go out on Thursdays.

So clearly it's a much more stressful event for a girl. I'm certain a fair share of people will shit talk me for the way I continue to live my life and my questionable morals, but at the same time, most people respect that I sacked up and moved 2000 miles from home to attempt to do something I love. The girl that slept with her married coworker and now everyone knows about it??? Oh she's much more fucked than me.

Ok, enough pontificating...what's the play? Black out and act a fool, try to bed a stranger? Try to rekindle and old fling? Clearly the right move is to just go and have fun. The night is not about me. Sure I'm on vacation, and I will certainly go to Pretty Lights at the Aragon Ballroom Friday night in Chicago and then close down Butch McGuires...but Saturday, go spend some time with old friends. Tell stories of abroad of college, make fun of the groom, marvel at the bride who will be the most beautiful woman in the room and genuinely enjoy the moment. It's not my job to paint Springfield, IL red and party it into oblivion. I'll still host a pre game in my hotel room for those that want to come, that's fine...respectable even. But when you leave, you never want to be a story, at least a bad one...because that story will never die. It will be repeated at every wedding to come, the rest of your life (that's if you are even invited)

But let's say I'm casually sipping a vodka tonic and a girl I used to know sits down to me and asks, "Why didn't you ever ask me out?"

Or maybe a cute girl taking fireball shots by herself offers me one...

"Bride or Groom?"

"Groom."

"Where you from dude? Chicago like everyone else here?"

"Venice beach, I'm a writer."

2 more fireballs.