Life is full of mundane choices. Or, choices that are at least fairly ordinary, leading to something desired because it is safe. Much more often than anyone realizes, we have opportunities to take unconventional paths that don’t follow the status quo. But day after day, restless individuals don’t notice the chances presented before them and go about their ordinary lives making the safer choices. Knowing from personal experience that riskier choices are sought more by college students than most other demographics for the purpose of adding colour to one’s life, the idea of themed parties made perfect sense. One of these very parties was a chance I took to live unconventionally for its few-hours duration, however brief that was. It was an ABC (anything but clothes) party.
What an ABC party entails is that all participants take the risk of actually going out in public without clothing, although not naked. How is this possible? Guests, getting to stimulate their creativity, use non-clothing objects to “wear” or cover themselves with to how they see fit. Upon getting invited to the ABC party and accepting, I was excited but nervous on more than one level. “What would I choose to wear? How would I assemble it and what would hold it together to guarantee it doesn’t fall off? Damn I would die if it fell off!” As these thoughts occupied my mind I suck it up, reminding myself that I’d wanted to go to an ABC party since freshman year. A little careful planning and safe selection would help me, so all in all I looked forward to seeing the creativity of many other unclothed people donning their outfits and taking pictures.
Fast forward to the ABC party night. Having spent a good half hour at least on the aesthetics of my outfit, I was ready. Six large leaves from the tree in my neighbor’s front yard covered me, along with blue suede boots and a jacket I wore for how bitterly cold the outside was. I felt tentative upon seeing that my friend picking me up and her ride were wearing clothes and not participating in the dress code. This was when they amusedly informed me that most people on the guest list were complaining about having to create an outfit, so the hostess sent out an email saying the dress code was now optional. An email that I’d failed to see. “Uh oh,” I thought getting into the car. But surely, there must be other people like me at the party who participated in the original idea.
At the party there were three other people who were also following the original dress code- a guy in a trash bag who was wearing clothes underneath and two girls in towels. None were as exposed as I was, however. As soon as I walked into that party, getting lots of stares and usually positive comments, my face turned pink and I at first rethought my choice to take the slightly dangerous path of attire for the night. Clothes are a great thing and the best way to make sure their wearers are not exposed, literally and figuratively naked. They are one of the most simple yet pertinent of the “safe” choices we make everyday and necessarily so. Yet through my embarrassment at my lone exposure, there was something enthralling about wearing those leaves laced up with brown woven string that were covering me up. If it’s possible to feel embarrassed yet strangely confident at the same time, I did that night. And not just because it lead to the most male attention I’d ever gotten in a single night at Flagler. The thrill of having taken an unconventional path, however small it was in the long run, rang through my head. Life had presented me a challenge, dared me to take it, and I did. And taking that little dare with so much exposure will probably help me make even more daring decisions in life, like when choosing careers or my next place of residence. So when someone tells me he or she is feeling the urge to mix up his daily life and step out of his comfort zone, I’d give him the recommendation of throwing an ABC party.
Word Count: 708
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