Tribes

To the Tribes We Belong.

Just like cliques in high school, I don’t fit into any of the tribes of adult life either. Never have. Even though it might be easier, I don’t want to. Actually, the real reason is that I can’t. I’m just not right. I’m terrified of rejection. And I’m this sort of a hybrid, a mixed breed, a feisty mutt. I change my mind too often. I want to be proper sometimes. But I’d rather be fun all the time. I would never go to a furniture showroom and buy it all at once. I am not always creative. Or cool. Or interesting. Sometimes I’m a slob. With iffy decorating skills. And in the mood for good-quality beer and bad-quality bars. I simply want the buffet of life. I don’t want to say no unless I’m really sure I want to say no. No is just too suffocating for me. I have to be able to move around, remain noncommittal, and always say yes to my place among the placeless.

Take last New Year’s Eve for example. I was thrilled to be invited to five parties. Of the five, I made it to three. (There is only so much booze one can ingest before it’s time to go home). Of the three, all were prime examples of tribal behavior. The first party, at an Anthropolgie-chic, 1950s cement block home-turned hipster haven in College Park, on the other hand, is an excellent example of people who don’t really prescribe to a tribe---yet are one anyway. They’re just a friendlier, more accepting, more fantastic humor-based tribe. These people are the very best possible sort. You could take a survey at first glance and assess that these are the so-called ‘artsy’ types. Creative. Fun-loving. Gay. Straight. Bi. Whatever. All over the map. Some with corporate jobs. Some who play in bands. Some who do lots of things that might surprise you. Like turn bicycles into bling. Write beautifully. Take stunning photographs. Or make their own costumes just because. These are the creative people who organize the books on their bookshelves by color. The people who quote Voltaire and make thrift store duds look like couture. To be honest, this is the group I feel most myself around. Because this is a warm and original crew with a nerdy edge. But I also feel like I just might not be nerdy-cool enough all the time to really belong. Yes, we are all insecure in our own ways. As for me, I am still just fifteen and a little unsure of myself underneath this hope-I’m-sexy, hope-you’re-impressed clothing I wear.

The food at their party: Iron Chef-inspired same-ingredient variation, please-try-me-I’m-yummy
The booze at their party: cheap but tasty wine, cheap but tasty champagne, only the best micro brews

OK now let’s examine the second party. If the stately--but not overly so--Winter Park home isn’t a dead giveaway of the upscale party in store, the crowd certainly is. The men are equally clean-cut, attractive, upwardly mobile, in Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren sport-coats with impeccably highlighted yet demurely manicured women counterparts in tasteful sequin skirts or not-too-this-or-that cocktail dresses with differing Tory Burch, Gucci and/or Louis Vuitton bags that are displayed for all to admire on the large stone kitchen counter. The interior of house itself is impeccably decorated (by Mom? Former girlfriend? One can’t be sure.) There are monograms on everything: from the pillows on the couches, to the pillows in the master bedroom and guest bedrooms, even that blocky masculine lettering winks at you from the shower curtains. And there is, of course, a big “M” on the oversized, nautical-themed ice bucket on the charming hail-to-Nantucket porch. The music is perfect for New Year’s with loads of old-school hip hop that inspires a great deal of dancing. Some of this dancing involves a sassy bob-haired mother of two grinding and butt shaking to the point of serious panty exposure (flashed from beneath her Lilly Pulitzer tunic dress) not just once but several times.  These are my people too. Perhaps only because I share some of the strange upbringing rituals that I sometimes wish I didn’t know. Like prep school abbreviations and made-up terms for pretty much everything in order to create a secret language. I know other tribes do this, too. It’s a way of making experiences uniquely intimate to the people involved and a useful strategy for keeping others out.

The food: fancy cheese and crackers, individual gourmet desserts
The booze: top shelf everything on the deck with serious dents being made in the Crown Royal and Bombay Sapphire

The third (and final) party is the, for lack of a better term, ‘Euro-trash’ tribe. That sounds so mean. But I don’t intend it to be mean. It just is what it is. Everything is new and posh, oversized and overdone. You could compare it to the monogrammed OCD house in the sense that there is no originality or evidence of personality anywhere. In this particular house, it’s as if they went to Ethan Allen and Z Gallerie showrooms and said “I’ll take it” without any consideration for individual touches. So be it. This place is mighty comfortable, if soulless. The Taittinger and Cristal (and, ok, some pedestrian but perfectly acceptable Korbel) is flowing graciously by the hosts of the gathering, each of them circulating through the party and refilling our glasses one by one. The back terrace is like a Hollywood movie set all breezy and beautiful on the glistening, glass-still lake. I can’t complain. Until I notice all the hoochie. This was markedly and refreshingly absent from the previous two parties. Hoochie, by its quick’n’easy definition is “maximum makeup, minimal brain” or, as I like to say when I’m out and about: “lotta tail, no head.” The artsy tribe had their original beauty, their cerebral interestingness. The prepster tribe had their classicism, studied manners and elitism. This third tribe couldn’t be nicer but damn, what’s with all that cleavage. I’m straight and all I see are boobs. I can’t look anywhere but there. Tits hiked up on spray-tanned chests like bowls of overripe fruit. Ample round bottoms are stretching out clingy, jersey dresses with a hem that just covers their panties, if they’re wearing any. It’s distracting. I’m not jealous of the fake boobies. But I am a tad miffed that I’ll never have a butt like that.

The food at their party: those little frozen mini quiches you get at Costco near-burning in the oven, yet enjoyed by drunk people, in the huge kitchen
The booze at their party: Champagne at varying price points from decent to super-fine

It’s official. It’s now 2011 and I am drunk. I wonder how many of these chests are real. My phone rings. It’s this guy I shouldn’t like. I think about answering. But I won’t be rational. I’ll make a mistake. And I can’t leave my friends. I want to answer. But I don’t answer. It’s probably time to go. I’ve seen enough curvy ass for one night. It’s time to go home and sleep off all this champagne. Those monograms. Those saline implants. And all that intellectual curiosity.

To these tribes, I salute you. To these tribes and many more, I admire you. If you offered me an invitation to join, I think I’d only disappoint you. I want to visit all of you, though. And often. I really hope that’s ok with you. Thanks for letting me feel like I fit in---even just a little.