Parties without Phones

I attended a liberal college and was also involved in a lot of LGBTQ+ clubs. One of them was the trans club which would organize a semi-nude party every fall. The rules were: private parts need to be covered but everything else is free to be shown, and phones are prohibited in order to allow people to show their breasts and be more exposed generally.

At first glance this seems a little icky. But in truth, the fact that no technology was allowed and everyone was at a vulnerable space meant that there was an extra layer of trust in the party that wouldn't be there in most other parties.

Ironically, the need for no-phones was the first time in my life since my teen years where I was at a party without technology, and where I somehow felt so safe to act foolishly and have fun. We knew the party ended at midnight, but we had no way of knowing when midnight would arrive. The party was at a hall with glowing lights and a quick drag show. It was funny to see people walking around without phones and without being able to distract themselves from each other. The result was that people were making bigger circles in the space and saying hi to each other more. We were distracting ourselves commenting on our outfits more. The vibes were rather awkward, but people were being nicer to each other than they usually would. I found myself making friends - something which rarely happens in most parties with such ease. Everyone was kind of stuck in that moment and started dancing and losing themselves.

I became part of a larger group that had just formed then and we decided to leave and do an after party at the queer frat house. By then we had our phones as we took them out of the lockers, but funnily enough, people weren't really using them. I didn't know what time it was and I no longer seemed to care. The night seemed to stretch indefinitely and even though nobody had drunk anything, I felt somewhat intoxicated by the simple fact that I felt disoriented and having to just stick with the group I was. Then we got to the queer frat. I remember sitting at the queer frat in a circle and everybody talking to each other, some others dancing. Things felt so.... chill and normal. For the first time in my whole college journey (I was a junior), I asked a group of girls what their sexual orientation was. I kid you not, they did not know how to answer. There was a very awkward silence and they looked at each other as if they needed permission to express themselves. I had to poke them some. Even though I don't believe in non-binary and related labels, I still asked them casually, "non-binary? demi? bisexual?" and they still felt embarrassed to say. It was so weird, principally because all of the group had just been at the supposedly queerest party on campus. Our campus is very liberal and was the first one in the country to have a gay society, so this moment struck me as incredibly odd.

I then spent the rest of the party dancing and holding a conversation about trans identities and rights with a trans friend. They are a TIM and they said even they don't agree with the ideology, and we were carefully navigating the whole discussion, but in the way people speak normally to each other, without fear or anything. That was the ONLY honest conversation about trans rights I had with another queer person in my whole time in college.

It was weird that nobody was wasting their time thinking about taking group selfies. Nobody was talking to somebody else on their phone, or weighing down what other people were doing at that exact night, if they were having more fun than us, etc. It was just us and the moment.

When I got back home, it wasn't even midnight yet, and yet it felt as if some 6 hours, a whole and complete night, had gone by. I felt giddy and light and warm as if I were a part of a community. It was the first time that I had felt some semblance of genuine camaraderie in college.

I remember walking on campus once and two old ladies stopped me to ask a question. They asked me where the Lion's Den was. I flinched and was like, "huh?". They said the party space used to have a bar where students would go to drink. I told them there wasn't any bar in college anymore and you had to go a few blocks down to be in one. They gave this really disappointed face. The had been to that college 30-40 years earlier and they said some of their best memories were at the bar with their friends.

That made me feel kind of sad. Even students who had been there 15 years earlier were having more genuine friendships and events than I was experiencing there. Like real fun nights without instagram worries.

And the year groups after mine got it even worse, because, with college protests now, the campus has been on a permanent lockdown (maybe you can guess where this is...) and nobody from the outside can come in usually. So these ladies, alumni, and other people wouldn't be able to roam campus and ask current students questions and talk about their stories. And it also seems as if most college clubs have been operating at much lower capacities because of the exhaustion granted by the protests. I am seeing many current students express a kind of emptiness but they also don't feel like they are allowed to complain, there is this deadpan silence wherever you go.

Anyway, I think some other poster was talking about depersonalization in today's society and people being colder and I think this is part of the answer.