Beer pong is pedestrian

I'm sure that many of you out there have heard me rant about how "beer pong sucks," or "beer pong is so pedestrian," or whatever. I actually do have a reasoning behind this that I've explained a few times, but elucidating my position can't be a bad thing.

First off, it has very little to do with the fact that it is BEER pong and I have, numerous times, professed my hatred for the nectar of the nitwit. In fact, what I actually hate is MOST beer, as I have tasted beer before that is tolerable. Example, whatever EHers was drinking at the Big Hunt on Tim's pseudo-birthday, and also some beers at the Brickskeller. Unless you're playing beer pong with beer that actually costs something, I will want no part of it -- this is true.

Secondly, people say you can't knock it until you try it. Besides this argument being fallacious to begin with (don't knock heroin before you try it, don't knock slamming your hand in a car door before you try it, don't knock getting a lobotomy before you try it, don't knock hooking up with fat chicks before you try it...) -- despite this argument being fallacious to begin with, I have tried it. So put that in the Rook's fife and smoke it.

Thirdly, given the off-campus venues this year, the very idea of having a party and including beer pong is laughable. If we were a school like Indiana or UConn, where off-campus places have yards, or are in large houses, beer pong would be a perfectly good addition to a party. I might not join, but people who do like it could at least partake. At GW, parties are held in apartment buildings, or townhouses. Apartment buildings + beer pong = solid meatmass of sweaty partygoers and a horrible, horrible waste of space because of the pong table. Enough people come to parties in apartment buildings anyways, don't make it miserable for everyone else, just so that maybe a dozen people can cycle through playing beer pong.

Similarly, townhouses are skinny -- that's the whole point of building townhouses -- everyone gets a front facing the street, but the houses go back way far so that you actually have enough room to live. Putting a beer pong table in a townhouse where, at its maximum, the walls are nine feet apart IS A BAD IDEA.

Fourthly, the essence of partying is getting together with friends. Beer pong detracts from this, as inevitably, people are drawn to a game and they just watch. The only thing I can think of that is actually more boring to watch than beer pong is golf. And the worst part is that people will just sit there and gawk at other people playing a dumbass drinking game for a good part of the night. Beer pong detracts from the social ambience much more than it adds, in that people become more concerned with a stupid game than what is essentially important: seeing friends and growing closer.

Fifthly, it's really, really disgusting. You really think that water cup cleans off the ball? If god forbid, I'm playing some kind of pong, and the ball rolls into a corner and comes out with hairs and lint stuck to it - END OF GAME. There is no way that anything that ball has touched is ever going in my mouth (wow, that didn't sound overly sexual...).

So be judicious about beer pong. Trying to have a big party in an apartment building while simultaneously having an assload of people over? Just dumb. People will get a lot more out of the whole experience, and on the whole be less sweaty and physically uncomfortable, if you just let the party flow and sit around and talk with good friends. Even beyond that, dance party! I don't dance, but if I did, I would not want to have to boogie my way around a table (if anyone can even imagine me boogying). Again, just be smart about it. And it's still pedestrian just because it's fucking beer pong...