I have a bit of a routine in my life. Wake up, stay in bed as long as possible, go to class, get food, do something (my afternoons seem to evaporate) and then head home, all relaxed with a bit of free time. Many times I watch some TV or plan to do laundry, reading, etc. ... very "me-time kind of activities." Then it happens.
It can happen at any moment, or come from any one of the 4,000 plus kids on campus. It could be in person, in a phone call or in a text message. Someone, somewhere, asks in an optimistic tone, "Yo, you goin' out tonight?"
I hate encountering this question as part of my routine more than waking up with a hangover.
Don't get me wrong, after a long week or a long day, I enjoy nothing more than "setting my hair on fire." My past four years here have ensured that I can never run for public office, and I don't regret that, but just the question, phrased that way, makes my skin crawl.
The answers that follow this incessant query are interesting. If you have a serious amount of work, or indeed there is some mutual hardship going on (midterms, etc.), the answer can be a socially acceptable "No."
On the other hand, when the opposite is the case (orientation, etc.) there is almost an assumed yes. But the middle ground is a tough sell for me. If you say no, then does that mean you are not a fun person? Can you not allocate enough personal capital to make it a worthwhile endeavor? Perhaps. So the answer comes back a very neutral, "I dunno, are you?" There must be a better way.
"Yo, you goin' out tonight?" I particularly hate it the earlier in the week it comes. On Tuesday night, I have some things to do, and I don't regret the time I spent having fun on the weekend, but do I really need to do this again? What does it even mean to "go out" anyway? Do we have to go to a bar? Is it enough to watch TV at a friend's house? Must you be trying to get laid? It means none of this.
What about going downstairs to PJ's? If you have a social routine, and it gets a bit too set for a while, when you break it, is that going out? So. If you go to PJ's every other night, and all of a sudden you think it would be a better idea to go to the movies with friends, is that going out? It's all going out! But it's like pornography, I know it when I see it (thanks George).
Where is out? What do you do there? In my experience, I feel like Dorothy in the The Wizard of Oz: It takes a while to collect a group of halfwits who think their lives will be improved by going out. We travel about and sometimes have to fight off a witch or two who seem to melt when splashed with beer instead of water.
Then when we get there, on average we discover something about ourselves and about "out." Instead of the Wizard of Oz, we have Rhonda at PJ's, and instead of looking for courage, it's liquid courage.
Just ask what you really want to know. "What are your plans for the evening?" Or are you saying,?"I have nothing to do, so please, whatever you're doing, take me with you."??It gets even better on away messages. If you really want to signal to the world the amount of social capital you have, just write in your away message "out," or if you are really ambitious "downtown."
I had a friend who would do that even when we did something domestically: either stay at our house or in Charles Village (many times even when we would go to the library). Invariably, he would write "downtown" in his away message. It's nothing to have an intervention about, but it is interesting. Is he on his way to Oz? Does he need a heart? Courage?
I suppose there is no way around it, and?I must accept it as part of my routine much like paying for dry-cleaning. At the very least the phrase demonstrates some of the greatest limits of our common language. We don't really know how to communicate with each other, even about what we're doing on a given night.
Oh well. Ultimately, this is a terrible attitude. One day, I might write the same piece on my boss sticking his head through the door asking, "Can you come in on Saturday?" One day when I have a mortgage and kids, I will yearn for the days when some jackass wanted to travel down the yellow brick road.
