Adult Parties and Why I Hate Them

     "Are these [my mother's name]'s girls?  Oh my goodness, look how old you all are!  What grade are you all in?  What school do you go to now?  Oh, you're making me feel old.  I remember when you were this big."

    This evening was my aunt's 40th birthday party.  It was a surprise party, with wine tasting and an entirely gluten-free menu.  It was held at the country club that she is a member of, and which I have only had the obligation of going to a few times.
     I only have a few cousins on that side of the family.  One, the birthday lady's only child, is five years old and had a temper tantrum at the beginning of the party.  He was sent home.  If only I was five and could get away with that...
     My other cousins are all several years older than I am.  Two live with their parents on the other side of the country, and were not present at this party.  The other is 24 years old, has a job, and lives in her own apartment in the city.  She was present, but was treated as an adult.
     That leaves my two sisters and me as the only people under the age of 18 at this party.  I think I might have gone insane had not my aunt's mother-in-law arranged for us to have dinner at the club restaurant when not spending the evening in the downstairs game room.  The game room was saddeningly outdated and sparse, but it was better than the sickening party room full of adults.  I only entered that party room three times, and those three times were enough to make me want to knock my head against the expensively papered wall.

     Walking into the room the first time, we didn't know if it was the right party.  The old pictures of my aunt were probably the only things that assured me we were in the right place.  I recognized only one person.  My aunt wasn't there yet.  My aunt's mother-in-law, Ms. Jean, was almost too happy to show my sisters and me to the game room, and we were almost too happy to go.  
     After a while there, Ms. Jean and my mother came back to bring us upstairs to dinner - with a stop to say hi to my aunt, who had long since arrived.  This was my second encounter with the party room.  I practically had to wait in line to say hi, and while I did so I was subjected to the above italicized conversation.  Finally, after wishing my aunt a happy birthday, we had to wait around for Ms. Jean to finish her conversation before we could go have dinner.  
     While we waited, I couldn't help observing the party guests.  All of the men had very short hair and wore dull colors.  The women all wore different clothing that still managed to look the same.  They seemed to either obsessively follow fashion trends and renew their wardrobes accordingly, or were wearing the most fashionable outfit they owned.  Maybe this is just my perspective as a teen, but I felt that what was fashionable for the women to wear looked like an attempt to take teen fashion and make it grown up.  I saw many of the same basic styles that I see at school, but with more mature patterns and more jewelry.  It was sort of sad, that fashion was obviously such a high priority to these people.  They also seemed to all have one of two physiques, according to how much they exercised: the slender but tired, or the less slender and trying to hide it.  Everyone at the party wore identical smiles and spoke in identical tones.  The more I think about it, the more it seemed like something from a dystopian novel, or maybe just a plain old nightmare.
     After dinner (which was about 75% awkwardly trying to use my best table manners and still feeling like a 4th century country peasant, and the other 25% trying not to finish off the basket of bread in the center of the table) we went straight back down to the game room.  My sisters and I had agreed to spend our remaining 45 minutes after dinner watching a favorite TV show on the last bit of charge in my iPod.  When there, we discovered that this would not be so easy - the previously empty game room had filled with haughty, expensively-dressed girls of my sisters' ages.  We sat down on a couch and changed plans: one sister would try to take a turn on an arcade game while the other sister and I watched an episode of The Legend of Korra.  The most enjoyable part of my evening was definitely reliving Lin Beifong's heroic charge through Republic City to rescue Avatar Korra.  After this, the room had mostly emptied out and I tried another round or so on the street racing game.  
     Finally, Dad brought us back upstairs, where we waited in the party room again.  There were a lot fewer people this time.  I commented to Mom about the noticeable increase in the stench of wine since my last visit to the room.  She dryly reminded me that it was partially a wine-tasting party, after all.  But I was uncomfortable in the midst of so many adults drinking alcohol, and excused myself to the ladies' room.  I went straight from there to the lobby, and waited there for my family.

     I think I know what it was about that party that I hated so much.  I've put a name on the aura that made me want to run screaming as far and as fast as I could from that room.  It was the sheer pompous foolery that the event exuded.  The decadence of the country club and its decor.  The reek of wine that filled the room.  The contentment with the mundane that emanated from the overfed, overdressed attendees.
     I could not deal with the way everyone seemed so unimportant and thought themselves so important.  I could not understand how each person enjoyed the mundanity of this most repetitious of charades.  Perhaps, like I did, they hid their disgust behind a face of cheerfulness?  But if they did, why was this ritual of boring interaction even instituted at all?
     I wanted to laugh at them, I wanted to scream at them, I wanted to remove all memory of their existence from my mind.  
     It may be my introverted take on life, and my reluctance to socialize with people who have nothing in common with me, but what terrified me most was something my mom said at the end of the party.  She said that events like this were things some people had to do on a regular basis, especially people whose jobs are in business or include business-like things.  I have strengthened my resolve not to go into business.  
     Is that really what people do - the exact same interactions in a pattern, at event after event after event?  Is every adult party exactly the same as every other?  The people are the same, the clothing is the same, the food and drink is the same, the conversation is the same.  There is no part of any adult party that I've been to that has not been the exact same way in every facet of its petty existence.  Someone please tell me that there are variations.
     I feel very sorry for my cousin, the 24-year-old.  She has a degree in International Business.  She has only been old enough to drink for three years, but already has favorite brands of wine.  She seems to be very good at these sorts of parties.  She gets along better with her mom and aunts than with her cousins.  She's only nine years older than me, but from talking to her I feel more like a child than a young adult - she's already mastered the condescending voice.  I feel sorry for her because I fear there is no saving her from a life full of wine-tasting parties.

     I am reminded of two fictional events: one, the dinner party at the Dursleys' house in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and two, the Engagement Party in the 2010 film adaption of Alice in Wonderland.  
     In the Harry Potter book, the Dursleys flatter their dinner guests, a couple named Mason in hopes of getting Mr. Mason, a wealthy businessman, to sign a contract with Mr. Dursley's company.    Harry, the oddball, is sent upstairs.  When prompted before the dinner, Harry recites his role that night: "I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I don't exist."
     The far more relevant anecdote is from Alice in Wonderland.  The entire party seems exactly like the one I attended tonight - simply change the clothing styles, time of day, premise for the event, and contemporary politics, and the two events could be identical.  On the way to the party, Alice and her mother are arguing about how Alice isn't "properly dressed."  Alice asks her mother, "What if proper was wearing a codfish on your head?  Would you do it?  To me, a corset is like a codfish."
     I may not have been forced to pretend I didn't exist - Ms. Jean kept reminding me that I was free to join them upstairs - and I was not forced to wear a corset, I can't help but feel like Harry and Alice.  The absolute silliness of grownups is unfathomable to me.

     Please excuse me while I watch some Vlogbrothers videos.  I need to restore my faith in humanity.


EDIT:
I would like to amend two thoughts.
One: "the way everyone seemed so unimportant"
I will invoke the anecdotes from fiction again.  The Doctor, a 900 year old time-traveling alien, said, "in 900 years of time and space, I've never met someone who wasn't important before."  Everyone is important.  No exceptions.
Two: As Brianna pointed out in comments, people are not disappointments in humanity if they like boring events and can be content with mundanity.  They are merely people with a mindset alien to me.  I suppose I should be used to that mindset by now, since so many people I encounter seem to have it, but the atmosphere of that party hit me so strongly that I was stunned and angry.  Please pardon my rudeness.