4 Simple Ways To Spice Up Your Otherwise Stale Pregaming Experience
Pregames are a lot like life before age 30 — though we all know pretty much where things are heading, not enough time has passed to lawfully abandon hope.
We’ve all had those miserably cacophonous nights. Emotionally and physically hungover whilst listlessly standing around with that 3am Semisonic desperation, amazed at the barely disguised misery radiating throughout the bar. The nights that leave us with a bitter taste in our mouths–pissed at spending all that money we don’t have, stockpiling ammo to justify staying in when next weekend rolls around. Dangerously veering towards emo. Not unlike this sentence, pathetically approaching an all time low.
But on the much cooler, South Dakota State Quarter side of the coin, we’ve also had those bold and underlined great nights — the one’s that movies talk about sorta but not really. The one’s that manage to get replayed in that bored-at-work head of yours for years and years. They’d do well in an inspirational commercial, or a motivational speech. World, palm of your hand, not to scale.
How do you consistently get the latter? You don’t really. The point of things being great means that an equal amount of things have to be terrible. This is capitalism. But if you believe in formulas for success and/or Will Smith’s school of role selection, you’ll know that certain things help, and certain things are like associating too closely with your voluminously gifted, body odor loyalist of a friend. Therefore:
- The most crucial thing is to smell nice. The second most crucial thing is to have a solid pregame.
- Good pregames naturally raise the bar, and raising the bar means that you can make dated jokes about Cingular Wireless.
- They also get you as pumped as relevant GIFs, a tool used by the internet to emotionally enhance the reader experience:
With than in mind, here’s how to get on Lakers Bro Level:
I. If You’re Hosting a Pregame, Merge Friend Groups.
Like everyone else, I feel like I know quite a few people. But also like everyone else, I probably only have about 5-8 friends. For the purposes of life, a friend can be defined as a person you respect the hell out of, but also dislike with minor to extreme intensity.
While friends are great for things like eating meals in status-affirming public places, pregaming solely with friends* is pretty much the same thing as trying to use a low level Charmander to beat Brock’s Onyx. Not very effective, because good friends are a lot like what years 8-12 of marriage probably becomes–you’ve pretty much run out of things to say, you’ve exhausted all your favorite songs, and the personal details you know about this person are nightmarish to say the least.
But enter acquaintances and/or someone else’s mutual friends, and the game changes entirely. The dynamic is fresh, the conversation leads to a whole new slew of jokes, and a refreshingly good deal of sexual tension/excitement is added. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, each party wants to prove to the other that they are in fact, awesome to hang out with. The obsession with this perception creates a new reality, and that reality involves most people being really enthusiastic about taking shots. Always a good reality.
*This does not apply when the occasion (bachelor parties, reunions, even birthdays) naturally ups the level of pregame. In these cases, it’s sometimes best to stick to the core.
II. 8-15 People
Ideally you want to be able to bounce in an out of conversations–this prevents things from getting stale, and it gives off the illusion that your time is valuable. 8-15 is also an ideal number to balance out the “drinking game vs. non drinking game” dynamic–inevitably there will be people very much into flip cup or Kings, and there will be people who approach drinking games the way Taco approaches fantasy football–endearing for a time, but eventually a drag. Let these people form the cool kids club in the kitchen and talk about how awesome animated shows on cartoon network are. They’ll be allowed to continue loving themselves, and no one will be brought down by their poor man’s Terrell Owens competition cancer.
III. Hide the Music
Any pregame that devolves into 3-4 people duking it out over their superior music tastes should be avoided at all costs. Like a fine wine, let the playlist maker’s selection breathe for a little bit. Sure we no longer have attention spans, but greater bodies of work can still elicit greater meanings.
Plus, this route will make for the occasional unexpectedly great song. Not focusing on the music means that you might sorta forget about the music, meaning when a true keeper comes on, it’ll hit that much harder. Surprise is often the greatest element a party playlist could have.
IV. Don’t Take Stuff Too Seriously
A bit counterproductive given the entire purpose of this article, but the truth is that doing whatever the fuck you please is generally pretty fun. To quote the contemporary philsophical wonder Miley Cyrus, “we run things, things don’t run we.”
Debatable references aside, I feel like this is pretty sound advice. Aaron Hernandez know’s what I’m talking about. 
