Nurse the Hate: Hate the New Year's Eve Wedding

Twas in another lifetime, one in toil and blood when blackness was a virtue and the road was filled with mud. I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail. I was poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail. And so I bid goodnight to 2010 in what might be the worst way possible… a wedding that will also serve as a New Year’s Eve party. It is a combination of two of my least favorite things in one monster package.

I am always leery of New Year’s Eve as the expectation level is set impossibly high. You are told by society that unless you have the best night you have ever had ever, you have somehow failed. There is a reason your functional alcoholic friends dismissively call this “Amateur Night”. People are out there chasing the dragon. My New Year’s Eve celebrations can be categorized like this:

1984-1990: Get impossibly drunk on a dizzying array of alcohols at a house party of an ex-roommate or co-worker. Ouzo, cans of Milwaukee’s Best, flaming shots of 151 proof rum, and maybe Jell-O shots. Wake up in the morning with a skull crushing hangover and attempt to eat your way out of the pain with delivery pizza. Attempt to make up with your girlfriend after piecing together your admittedly horrific behavior.

1991-2004: Host a party where your closest friends wreck your house by spilling red wine on light carpet, barf on your couch, and knock candles over starting small fires. Stay up until 5am attempting to clean up after the last guest leaves. Say to yourself, “Fuck this. I am NOT doing this next year” while mopping up something brown and squishy in the guest bathroom.

2004-2009: Look for viable alternatives at good restaurants that rip you off with “packages”. These packages usually consist of the same food as the menu but with less choices, an extra paper party hat, and cheap glass of sparking wine thrown in for an additional $125 per couple. Maybe head over to the neighbor’s New Year’s Eve gala that will feature the ever popular veggie tray with dip, meatballs in Crockpot, and cans of Bud Light on the porch. Watch the exhumed body of Dick Clark attempt to countdown to one on the oversized TV in the “man cave”. Always have the sneaking suspicion, like everyone else, that somewhere there is a really fun party you weren’t invited to… The kind of party normally only seen in James Bond and teen exploitation films.

Now I stare down the belly of the beast with a wedding on top of it. I even like the couple getting married. I’ll probably even like some of the guests. It’s the wedding itself I despise. I am already cringing thinking about the DJ saying things like “At this time, we’d like to get the parents of the bride on the dance floor” and “Let’s get this party started!” while Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” emits from the overdriven speakers. I am having a hard enough time trying to keep it together in everyday situations, much less one where overfed middle aged women are clanging their silverware against their water glasses while smiling like mental patients to get the new couple to kiss each other.

I don’t want to listen to my table coo over how cute the little flower girl is in that special dress. I don’t want to stand in line to get a 10 oz glass of domestic draft beer. I don’t want to hear how the other people at my table know the bride/groom. I don’t want to shake the hands of the bridal party and struggle to find something to say to these complete strangers I will never see again. I don’t want to eat that little salad drenched in Italian dressing. And most of all, I don’t want to be standing in that room when the clock strikes twelve, ushering in the New Year with an overexcited wedding DJ in a bad fitting tux.

Maybe I need to focus less on the undeniable negatives. Maybe I need to really embrace the wedding culture and the New Year’s Eve idea. Maybe this year I really try and turn this thing around. Look at this thing as an opportunity. Maybe I need to not fear what is so evident. What others see so clearly. I should stop pretending. Stop ignoring all the signs. Follow my heart. Maybe I need to crank through ten shots of Goldschlager and be out on the dance floor all by myself, dress shirt open, and doing the robot. Maybe in just a diaper and a paper hat blowing a horn while the DJ blasts “Push It” by Salt N Pepa.

It’s a new year. What the hell.