Social Fumbling

Platonic Defenestration

On April 26th 2009 there was an incident in the (new) On Dit office, of potentially dire consequences. As Ms. Stephanie Walker was finishing her cigarette she turned and began to climb back through the window, which we smoke through. I, having just finished a cigarette myself, gave Ms. Walker a playful shove as if to push her through the window.  She then said, quite firmly “don’t push me”, to which I pushed her, not especially hard, but ‘boy’ hard. It was to my horror that I saw her crash into the office, hitting her head on a pot plant and dislocating her knee. As I watched my co-editor’s body crumple into the ground I realized I had crossed the platonic female friend line.

Steph can definitely be seen as one of the boys, happy to drink, smoke and talk loud nonsense, at least until it gets a bit too ‘bitches and ho’s’ as she so succinctly put it. But while a girl can inhabit the ‘boys world’ for a little, eventually it will come crashing down, like an editor through a windowsill.

Guys grow up with roughhousing and it never truly goes away. Add to this the injection of alcohol to social situations and the testosterone fuelled moxie of post-pubescence and you have what can be a rough part of town so to speak.  One party, after completing a game of centurion (100 shots of beer in 100 minutes, fucks you up real good, real fast) I was play fighting with my housemate Mr Metaphor/ when he pushed me, my alcohol-addled body limply falling, my head crashing into the car park ground. I was unconscious for a full 15 seconds, during which Mr Metaphor/ thought I was dead and promptly freaked out and ran away. The point of this story is that I groggily picked myself up, had a cider and a smoke, and went about my night, no hard feelings.

It’s not the first time I have been injured by and/or injured my mates in the course of having a good time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Drunken boxing matches, beer bottles waved in the air with reckless abandon, people being thrown into the boulder-rimmed pool. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then it’s hilarious.

Girls are great to have as ‘one of the guys’ type friends, but beware, they’re not quite as hardy as the rest of your beer-swilling mates. If you were to knock a girl out in a car park by accident, it would be a disaster of potentially party-ending consequence. Much like playing pushing a girl through a window. No one laughs, everyone feels bad, even the victim somehow.

Steph was okay, her knee popped back in (unlike the last time when her friend Jake was the perpetrator, and she had to pop it back in herself then went into shock) and I spent the night feeling like a dick, apologizing and offering to get her stuff. Our first aid kit contains only some gauze eye-pads, sunscreen and aromatic shower gel, but I did read the St. John’s Guide chapter on what to do if someone goes into shock, just in case.

We have however established some new boundaries. She’s still one of the boys. Just not one of the boys you push through an open window.