Foolishly Punctual

At some point, it’s become socially acceptable to show up “fashionably” late to parties. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t understand this, because I seem to always be the first person to show up to social functions, foolishly punctual. (Foolishly Punctual… that’s a good band name!)

My impression is that parties have a bit of a lifecycle, starting off kind of slow and awkward, then getting loose and fun and comfortable, reaching a glorious plateau, and then trailing off. Showing up late to parties means that you can get there when things are already in full swing. You can just walk into a fully formed party, like it was created just for you. No small-talk, no waiting for others to show up, just instant fun.

The problem with this is two-fold: First, if everyone did it, it wouldn’t work. If everyone showed up at the same time, just an hour late, the effect would be identical to everyone showing up on time. Therefore, it implicitly takes advantage of the poor suckers (that is, ME) who shows up at the appointed hour.

This heretofore nagging frustration crystallized into a rational thought when discussing tonight’s new year’s plans. A friend mentioned that, according to the published plan, we were all meeting up at 6pm and then going out for drinks. She (not me!) said that this means that people will show up late, and so we probably wouldn’t actually get going until later. So, she (again, not me) suggested that we move the start time back an hour to 5pm, thereby creating the desired effect of actually getting underway at the originally planned time, 6pm.

I tried hard to keep my head from exploding.