It happens to everyone. Now you'll be prepared. 

The kegs are tapped. The music has steadied. The light bulb in the bathroom has either burned out or shattered and your roommate is passed out in front of the fridge after housing nine Pop-Tarts soaked in Jungle Juice. The party is over and everyone seems pretty okay with that.

Making your way into the living room, you notice a few stragglers have begun to chat with one another. You look outside and see a few more lost/belligerent souls discussing something on the patio too. Sometimes it’s a good idea to interject and provide your thoughts on one of the given topics, other times it’s best to just be a fly on the wall and take it all in. When choosing the latter option, you get the privilege of listening to some exchanges that usually only happen between the hours of 2:00 – 5:30am.

Here is a brief list of what you can expect to hear talked about in the last few hours of a rager.

The all-knowing political world-order “genius” lectures

Fasten your seatbelts, because this motherfucker comes out of left field 98 percent of the time. This conversation is usually initiated by some dude who considers himself the all knowing swami on everything from various political factions to the most obscenely idiotic conspiracy theories — to how the government should be run because he spends 10 hours a day getting lifted and scouring Reddit until his eyeballs start to bleed. The hollow earth conspiracy is not only insanely nonsensical, but it’s also the last thing you’re going to to want to discuss once you start sobering up from the keg stand you just crushed. There’s nothing to gain from these people because they aren’t listening when you try and convey your thoughts — they’re just simply waiting for their turn to talk again.

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“We’re gonna do all this cool shit together now that we’re boys”

Maybe you two bonded over both being from Cincinnati while splitting a blunt, but now all you guys have talked about for the past two hours is how you guys are going to be the best of friends and hang out all the time. From skydiving to Xbox live, you two promised to never leave each other's side. That is until you guys go your separate ways in an hour and never see one another again. Either way, it’s fun to plan for things that’ll never really happen.

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“Let’s relive high school because it’s been like five years.”

It was bound to happen at some point or another. You have successfully run into someone from your high school that you didn’t know very well and now you two can’t stop reliving the glory days when no girls asked you to Sadie Hawkins and Chamillionaire was number one on the billboards.

“Joni? Oh dude I heard she has like three kids now.”
“Remember Cooper? yeah man he’s playing minor league lacrosse in Ecuador or something … ”
“Bro I heard Jasmine moved to LA to become a model but now she’s a delivery driver for Jimmy John’s.”

In all honesty, there’s nothing particularly toxic about this scenario, but who in god’s name actually wants to get nostalgic about high school?

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“I just found out that all the rumors I heard about you we’re completely true/untrue”

This was one can be a real doozy. One the one hand, this scenario can provide you with faith in how unsubstantiated mindless gossip can be when you find out that the person you had heard so much about isn’t nearly as much of a shithead as people described him/her as. On the other hand, sometimes rumors are around for a reason, and this person is exactly the way they were described to you. At the end of the day, you don’t lose much from finding out on your own — nothing a 20 minute chat won’t solve.

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“We just met. But you’re awesome and I appreciate that.”

If only every late night interaction could fall into this category. Every once in awhile, there is an off chance that you end up hanging out with a genuinely fantastic individual and converse and bond from dusk until dawn. You guys are on the same page with music, movies and general ruminations on life. He/she doesn’t beat you over the head with their theories on the illuminati, they don’t trumpet for social justice or ask why you could stand by your believes in the democratic system of government. They just want to keep things light and find out whether other people feel the same way they do on the important things in life. Like who’s your favorite member of Wu-Tang? Why does Indian food have to be so delicious? Which team is going to the Super Bowl? Did you take this class? What’d you think of it? You get the picture. This category of conversation will always be well worth your time before you’re finally ready to make your way home and pass out for the next month.