It started out as a nice evening with a few friends at a Nevils apartment, as it always does. Then someone’s friend’s little sister brought her Harbin cluster-mates, someone’s cousin and all his friends and acquaintances showed up, and a few dozen texts and tweets later, the apartment was flooded with thirsty, rowdy strangers.
At some point in the evening, one of the apartment’s residents attempted to show a boy her bedroom, only to find that the door was locked. Assuming some randos had co-opted the room as their personal love nest, a crowd began to form outside the door to harass the couple, banging and yelling out comments like, “1, 2, 3 … Finish! Now GET OUT!” A brave (and likely inebriated) soul even attempted to climb out of an adjacent window in order to get into the locked room, but to no avail. One party-goer took it upon himself to kick down the door; instead, he managed to break it in half. Everyone standing around the door roared in laughter, yelling phrases like “This is cool! Now you have a doggy door for your room!” But the room’s owner wasn’t laughing. After crawling on all fours through her broken door and examining the room, she emerged, defeated. “There’s no one in here,” she announced. “I must’ve just locked myself out.”
The party quickly deteriorated, and as I shuffled out of the apartment, I began to wonder why more people haven’t stopped accepting their broken-down doors and begun asking, “Why do I have people over at all? Why deal with trashed apartments and excessive tabs at Dixie just to have a few friends over?” It seems much easier to go to someone else’s house or some other party to have a good time, free from the stresses of hosting. For as long as anyone can remember, upperclassmen at Georgetown have supported the tradition of hosting parties. As the years roll on and we approach our senior year, we take on the responsibility of buying kegs and Burnett’s for all.
But why are we so eager to repay the favor? Wouldn’t it be easier to just party at our friends’ houses every weekend instead of providing all those Keystones for younger Hoyas? Once we get past all the annoyances of drunk people consuming our party supplies and destroying our living areas, we start to realize the little things that make entertaining worthwhile. There seems to be an intrinsic value in having your guests know that this is your party, an honor that comes with all sorts of privileges. Long line for the keg? Everyone knows the “no-cuts” rule doesn’t apply to the host. Someone sleeping (or doing something less innocent) in your bed? You have full authority to drag them out by the ear. Hosting a party means you pretty much run the show, and for many, this is reason enough to throw a rager.
The absence of real sororities and fraternities (sorry, B-Frat) is another reason Georgetown students are so willing to lend their apartments to bacchanalian revelry. Everyone seems to agree that just because our school hasn’t gone Greek doesn’t mean we that shouldn’t have celebrations of Heraclean proportions. This aspect of the party scene may actually allow for more diversity than Greek life would provide. Upperclassmen throw everything from “Guido Bros and Jersey Hos” ragers to post-basketball game bashes. There’s also a spirit of inclusiveness you don’t get at Greek schools. From Hockey House to the Village A Rooftops, there are parties all over campus that are happy to let you and your friends have a good time, and you don’t even have to pay dues to attend.
Looking past the beer cans and broken doors, it’s clear that the party scene at Georgetown is worth preserving. The pros of providing a good time for the whole school and of carrying on the school’s party traditions significantly outweigh the cons of cleaning up some spilled beer on Sunday morning. We deal with drunk guys and cat fights, stolen knickknacks and raided refrigerators, because, in the end, we all want to keep the party going for posterity, and maybe a new doggie door for your room really does sound like a good idea.
