Non fiction

Bewildered

Wow... Wow. How could you...? Why would you? What is? I don’t... Why?

How?? WHY???

Well, at least now I know what everyone was going on about. Finally know what I’ve missed out on. Actually, that’s not the right word. It’s fascinating, incredibly interesting, from a cultural point of view. I don’t think I would ever be able to truly enjoy myself here. And really, there were only three, four people at the most, who seemed to be honestly happy and not just trying to fit in, be sexy or attractive and thought worthy of attention.

These SU parties are massive. There’s people all over the place, half of them drunk, the other half at least tipsy and all of them doing the utmost to have a good time. They’re dancing, drinking, laughing, gossiping, talking (I don’t know how anyone can hear someone talk, maybe you have to practice a lot) and less civilized things.

I had of course read about student nightlife, the parties and the amounts of alcohol being served, I’d seen pictures and films people made about it. But you just don’t realise what it really feels like until you’re experiencing it yourself. In my home country I never met with the right people to go to these kind of events but it’d always fascinated me.

And now I had ended up in just that kind of situation. Not even entirely on purpose, who knew that the pub crawl ended in the SU? It was certainly not anticipated, but once I found myself amongst these students who clearly weren’t new to the environment, it enticed me: the tendency to pick your feet up every second so as not to be glued to the beer-covered floors, all those people everywhere, girls wearing not much clothes and rather too much make-up, the thumping music that made your ears ring, even after you’d been outside for an hour.

An empty look in a girl’s eyes, a drunken guy glaring at the ceiling, probably wondering what life was all about. It just seemed so meaningless, so useless. Why would you endure that social pressure? What could be the motivation for allowing yourself to be looked at like an object, there to be judged on your sex-appeal and seductive dance skills.

But somehow, I was one of them. After all, I was there as well, judging just as quickly as they were (probably even quicker because of my soberness), looking around me and seeing everything I didn’t agree with or didn’t understand. Ah, the complexity of the human mind. It's bewildering, don't you think?

Christien Bos