They Can Cancel Bar Night, But They Can Never Cancel Me Dancing Drunk And Alone On A Wednesday Night

By Harry Weinstein

Jan. 30, 2019

Alpha Delt may have cancelled this week’s bar night because of a polar vortex, but they will not stop me from spending my Wednesday nights like I always do. They can try to remove the room, the music, and even the people from the equation, but they will never stop me from dancing alone and hating myself in a stranger’s basement.

Tonight I plan to go on like usual. Dancing and drinking, and then drinking and leaning against a brick wall till someone kicks me out at four in the morning. Maybe I will find a basement below all the singles in I-House, filled with a trove of historical artifacts but in desperate need of heating. Maybe I’ll go where all the kids in South do their laundry and sign off on packages. Or maybe I’ll find somewhere else really cool and special. All I know is I will be doing all this, alone, like I usually do.

They can cancel their grungy, slick hipster basement vibes and the four-hour loop of Mo Bamba and Abba’s Dancing Queen, but they can never cancel my deep sense of loneliness when I’m surrounded by other people. They can never cancel the seconds I’ll gaze with longing at every single living thing and inanimate object in the room with me, hoping in one fell swoop I’ll have my first kiss and fall in love. They can try their best to cancel bar night, but they’ll never cancel my heart’s soaring discontent and the infinite self-hatred that compounds on Wednesday nights. And the feeling that everyone else is the same and gets it, but me. All of these things will continue to grow and grow each week, until they eventually take over me, like weeds over a field of carnations. This week will not be any different.

Like all other Wednesday nights, I know I will end up buried on the Midway in a frozen puddle of tears, blood, and urine and a stolen Canada Goose. No matter how hard the brothers at Alpha Delt try, they will never be able to cancel that. Those men will never cancel my lifestyle.

My single, fleeting joy in a black, eternal winter will always be there for me. Like they say, all the windchills of a polar vortex will never be enough to overpower my desire to feel the full weight of my crushing sadness.

It will always be Wednesday night at UChicago.