At the end of my favorite movie, \When Harry Met Sally,"" Harry, after agonizing over his feelings for weeks (and spending the previous two hours eating Mallomars, playing crushed-up paper basketball and watching ""Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve""), runs on foot all over New York City to catch Sally at a very posh New Year's Eve party to tell her, once and for all, at the stroke of midnight, that he truly loves her.
This New Year's Eve I stayed home.
In my fantasies, New Year's Eve was a time when magic happened, the Earth opened up and all my dreams came true.
In reality, New Year's usually blows. Come to think of it, I've never even really had a ""date"" for New Year's. I've had long-term boyfriends over the holidays, but boyfriend or not, I typically stayed in.
Like the time Brian Hays and I played Trivial Pursuit until 1 a.m., and then... went home. Or the time Andy Stoffels and I ate subs from The Chocolate Factory, watched the ball drop, and then... went home.
Or two years ago, when my friends and I decided to all take a trip ""up north"" to Door County, Wisconsin. Imagine it: seven friends, holed up in a snowed-in vacation house for three-and-a-half days. We argued pretty much the whole time, and then (say it with me)'went home.
Really, there are a lot of reasons to hate New Year's Eve. In addition to being a constant source of disappointment on the social scale, it's amateur night. People who are usually teetotalers try to cash in all their chips on one night'they drink an incredible amount of alcohol, thus providing them with an easy excuse for activities such as hitting on inappropriate people, tripping on nothing and yelling ""woo"" a lot. Not to mention the fact that the night typically ends with everyone going around in a circle and telling his or her resolutions.
Everyone has an elaborate plan for how they'll improve themselves over the next year, only to stop exercising, eat the cookie, procrastinate on the schoolwork, buy the CD, leave the highbrow novel collecting dust, drink the caffeine, watch the television and have that cigarette all by Jan. 3.
Yep, New Year's, no matter how you slice it, has never lived up to my standards. But really, when you think about it, exactly where are these standards coming from? Ah, yes, the television, the silver screen'where so many of our standards come from. Where people all have fabulous jobs that they work at approximately 45 minutes a week. Where they live in apartments that cost more than Oprah's net worth. Where they never wear the same clothes twice. And where all their dreams come true on New Year's Eve.
How can I compete with that?
I can't. So screw that. You know, Trivial Pursuit with Brian Hays wasn't really that bad. I won the game, got closer to him and didn't have to wear a scratchy dress. Watching the ball drop with Andy was actually kind of fun. I mean, food and ""Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve,"" how can you beat that? And that trip with the group'well, we didn't argue that much. In fact, I really love that group, and they love me.
Geez, what the hell am I complaining about? An early New Year's resolution: Resolved, that I will try to live up to my own friggin' standards for New Year's fun. I refuse to buy into the mythology that New Year's Eve should be the greatest night of the year.
If I want to sit at home, alone, in my underwear, eating ice cream and watching ""New Year's Rockin' Eve,"" then so be it. So I guess I'll have a date next New Year's after all. In fact, I'll have three: Ben, Jerry and Dick. And that's enough for me.
