In defense of: Blacking out

I am going to pose a question, and I want you to consider it with the highest level of personal honesty: Why do you go out to the Street? Take a moment and really think this through. I am somewhat confident that, if we all apply sound logic to this question, we will arrive at the same conclusion: Obviously, the only reason that anyone goes out is to make out with ‘fat people.’

In this context, ‘fat people’ refers to anyone who is at least two attractiveness numbers below your own score. You know who I’m talking about: the freshman boy who maintains that it was really cool to be on the debate team in his high school, the crew girl whose intimidatingly powerful legs don’t quite fit into her spandex, a grad student. Going out is all about making undesirable hookups okay. Luckily, we have one powerful tool that makes all of this possible: blacking out.

We painstakingly get dolled up and make our way toward Prospect every Thursday and Saturday. We brave the pregames, the passes and the judgmental stares, all for the purpose of hooking up — and the chance of ending up with a person who is generally ‘attractive’ and ‘doesn’t smell bad’ and ‘has all her teeth’ is still dishearteningly low. Blacking out is what allows us to achieve our only goal in going out. We want to hook up, but we don’t want to lower our standards. Blacking out lets us overcome our frivolous, socially-imposed ideals and has the additional benefit of wiping the memory of said hookup out of our brains, thus circumventing any firsthand shame you may experience.

At this point, some of you may be saying, “But I don’t go out just to hook up!” to which I reply, “Poppycock!” in a strong British accent while lifting my monocle to my eye. There are several common objections to my stance that people only go out to hook up.

“I just like dancing!” you might say. This argument does not hold because there are many available dance venues that do not require getting hit on by drunk frat pledges or having beer spilled down your socks. Haven’t you heard of BlackBox? Me neither!

“I just like hanging out with my friends!” you say. I don’t understand this claim. You choose to spend your bonding time in a dark, noisy environment filled with aerosol beer and the scent of desperation? You must have really good friends.

“I need to make connections for Bicker!” you say. Just go home. Please. It will make the pain go away.

Finally, blacking out has the wonderful side effect of creating a personalized mystery for you to solve. Every person who has received the gift of the blackout gets their own special Sunday Morning Crossword Puzzle to go along with it. Even better, your friends get to embellish and exaggerate the details of the night, thus contributing to the soon-to-be legend that is your life. Who doesn’t want to be known as that girl who puked all over the couches at TI, the bathroom at Cloister and the corner of the Charter pool room? Legendary.