Why, ultimately, First Night parties disappoint

For many a year (I'm guessing here), towns have offered non-alcohol based celebrations as an alternative to the usual drunken revelry of new year's eve. Though a nice concept, ultimately these sober soirees fall flat through no real fault of their own. The problem, of course, is that Man has made life a particularly un-fun experience. If this weren't the case, I'm sure the instances of vicariously-livin' football dads punching out referees would diminish greatly.

"Life is tough" gets bandied about often though it's really not accurate for the majority of humans anymore. Life is actually very easy; either you're alive and you're a success or you're dead and you failed. Living however is a different story. In the developed Western world, we are lucky enough to lead mundane existences.

And this is where alcohol comes in to play. Society is adamant in forcing upon us the notion that drinking it = fun. The de facto meaning of the word 'party' seems to imply alcohol and thus we use terms like "dinner party" or "birthday party" to warn potential attendees that the emphasis will not be on the alcohol. It's similar to the word for meat in Chinese. If you leave off any descriptors people assume you're referring to pork.

So yes, booze is fun-in-a-bottle (or fun-in-a-bottle-in-a-bag for those keepin' it real types). The favorite comment drunks make to sober people at parties is either "wow, aren't you bored?" or some expression of condolence. Placing 3rd is the bizarre "I really respect that".

Many people drink to loosen up and lower their inhibitions. It's societally accepted and easily dismissed if a person demonstrated over the top antics at the company party "Oh he was drunk, that's why his pants were around his ankles". Don't get me wrong, I don't equate 'pants-down' with 'uninhibited', I just lumped them together in a demonstration of poor grammar. I was just making the point that some use it as a tool. Now, why people are so inhibited during their daily lives is a topic for much discussion another day, but let's face it, most people are scared to be themselves for fear of failure, ridicule, others' perception, etc.

There's too much money to be made here so society wants us to think people not drinking alcohol, particularly on this holiday, either can't because they're allergic or "recovering from disease" (don't get me started) and thus deserving of sympathy, or are nerdy, socially awkward, or just don't know better and thus deserving of ridicule. By the way, the "just doesn't know better", in respect to the concept of happiness, is explored to interesting effect in Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It's a quick, fun read.

With all these factors in play then at a non-alcohol First Night function, all it really takes is a boisterous, too-cool-for-school kinda person to really throw a wrench in the works.

All that being said, one of the better new year's eves for me was one of these First Night things in NY, which included me really really stinking it up trying to learn how to salsa. Just to know a thing about me, I'm forever fearful of the idea of dancing because of that one SNL skit where Chris Farley is in the back of a bar mocking Jeff Goldblum yelling "Hey Everybody! Let's do the IDIOT!!!".
Hmm, the worst new year's eve was probably standing in the cold in Times Square for however many fucking hours surrounded by guys pissing on walls and women squatting in the streets doing the same (except on the ground of course, so 'same' refers to the pissing action not the object being pissed on) followed by a near riot after the ball dropped. So yeah, new year's, pfffft.
But I do like the Lunar New Year.