Free I'm Only Here for the WiFi by Chelsea Fagan Page A

friends, and we all have the same nagging sense that we are, more or less, “adults.” We have an inchoate fear that everyone else our age is inviting friends over for a refined evening of witty banter and intellectual debate around a mahogany table in a well-decorated dining room as they sip Chianti and laugh with smug satisfaction. There may even be cigars and brandy in the library, if the conversation turns political. They also probably share tips on how to best manage your railroad empire and clean your monocle. These savvy twentysomethings all know how to make an incredible Beef Wellington and tap-dance out of their kitchen as they serve it, laughing and smiling about how well-adjusted they are and how just incredibly together their shit is.
    That is the dinner party of an adult, and, judging by how much of your furniture is still hand-me-down IKEA, you are not yet one yourself. But there is a grating knowledge that the “anything goes”–style Roman orgy that house parties used to be are just not okay anymore. So what do you do when there simply isn’t the square footage or kitchen appliances to host a real dinner event? We have these awkward, in-between affairs in which we kind of sit or stand in circles and kind of discuss things as we sip various drinks out of a mix of actual stemware and plastic cups. The topics of conversation and location are rather adult—you all have jobs to discuss and the apartment is at least marginally well-decorated—but you are still not quite grown-ups yet. It sort of feels as if you’re alittle kid again, scooting around the house in your parents’ clothes and shoes. All the elements are there, but nothing quite fits.
    Though the party may turn into something halfway decent by the 2:00 a.m. mark, when you’ve long since switched from Pinot Noir to Jäger shots, the process of getting there involves repeating the question, “So, what do you do?” over and over again, as you awkwardly stand against the kitchen counter. It all has the defeated feeling of the progressive, inevitable slide we’re all taking to having dinners with friends that end at a reasonable 11:00 p.m. and are followed by conversations in the sedan on the way home about how nice the brisket was.
    You might come across the rare house party among good friends in their twenties that just feels as warm and broken-in as an old pair of jeans, one that doesn’t require the pretense of putting out the best snack trays and taking people’s coats to prove that you’re a big girl now, and those are wonderful, but they become increasingly few and far between. Whether because of geographical distance, or the fact that some of your friends have upped and started getting married/having kids, there are a million reasons why the easy and fun house party starts to dwindle down as you get older. Most of the parties in which the crowd is unfamiliar and the conversation is 80 percent introductions are all going to fall into this same kind of stilted rhythm, leaving the house party a dubious choice at best.
The Dive Bar: I Don’t Know What I Stepped in, But It Was Wet
    I’ll be honest—I’m not a big fan of the dive bar. I know that for many of you, the idea of someone not liking a place covered with peanut shells and bartenders that scream at you if you don’t order clearly enough is nothing short of blasphemy, but bear with me. I’m not as high-maintenance as you might think, and my dislike for dive bars certainly doesn’t come from its more-than-fair price points. I don’t need to go somewhere fancy to feel as if I’m not accidentally mixing with the paupers. I just find that, in general, the ambience of dive bars is that of “Let’s strip this place of any and all charm so that people have no reason to pace themselves when getting completely shitfaced.”
    From the old guy leering by the jukebox (that will only ever play