Birthday Blowouts

But for some people, every birthday is special and there are no rules for how grand or outrageous a birthday party can be.

Take for example celebrities like rapper P. Diddy, who flew 300 of his ‘friends’ to Morocco on his private jet for his 33rd birthday and spent 2 million bucks for two days of wild partying Or Paris Hilton, who celebrated her 21st birthday by having five birthday parties in five different cities – Tokyo, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and London – at a cost of over $75,000 each!

Impressive, but nothing compared to Holland’s Queen Beatrix’s annual birthday blowout bash, when the entire nation parties for two days to celebrate Beatrix’s big day! I don’t know the Queen personally, but ma’am, I sure had a great time at your birthday party last month! Thanks for inviting me! From what I remember of it, I certainly had a good time: Drinking, dancing and Dutch blonds is very, very good mix!

In her ‘Asian girl’ column in Delta last month, Asian girl lamented the fact that that so many students “just sleep together” (i.e. have sex), as opposed to being together as couples in relationships. True, it’s not very meaningful, but sleeping around is a normal part of university student life – if it’s to be done at any point in your life, now is the time!

When you’re a student, everything in some sense is still so experimental, because we’re not yet considered to be ‘fully responsible’, as we will be once we have our own families. Yet, we’re also no longer carefree, inexperienced high school kids living at home with our parents. So, we students go out, we party, we experiment, we meet girls or guys we like, we ‘click’ together, and suddenly we’re in bed together naked!

If there’s something odd about this, it’s the morning after, especially if one of the two is already set on not doing it again with the other. If a guy isn’t entirely infatuated by the girl, but would like to see her again, he probably won’t initiate further contact, instead preferring to wait until she does first. But girls usually won’t call either, because the guy is the one who generally is supposed to call first. What happens then is we get stuck in the spiral of he/she didn’t call me yet, is he/she thinking about me, until we just forget about each other and move on.

Why is this? Maybe it’s because when it comes to one-night stands, it’s the guys who tend to compromise on their ‘standards’ a lot more than girls, because girls usually have the final say as to whether sex happens or not. In such cases, the guys are the beggars, the girls the choosers, and we’ve all heard the saying, ‘Beggars can’t be choosey’!

It’s also true, although perhaps not fair, that many guys don’t want to date a girl who has slept with him on the first night! So, either there is a reason why two people wouldn’t call each other the next day, or simply the ideal case is just of some fun, no-strings-attached sex for both.

So, all we can do is remember the good times and look forward to the next time! There are plenty of fish in the sea, be it in China or Delft, and everyone has a future partner out there somewhere. But until we find them, bed-hopping and hoping will just remain a normal if sometimes painful part of this student life.

Tarek Ghobar is from Lebanon. The next ‘Tarek’s Diary’ will be published in Delta 23. He can be emailed at: t.ghobar@tudelft.nl.

Celebrating your birthday in style is something everyone wants to do when that special day rolls around each year. Usually the best parties are thrown for our milestone birthdays, like our ‘Sweet 16’ or turning the ‘legal age’ of 18 or 21. But for some people, every birthday is special and there are no rules for how grand or outrageous a birthday party can be.

Take for example celebrities like rapper P. Diddy, who flew 300 of his ‘friends’ to Morocco on his private jet for his 33rd birthday and spent 2 million bucks for two days of wild partying Or Paris Hilton, who celebrated her 21st birthday by having five birthday parties in five different cities – Tokyo, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and London – at a cost of over $75,000 each!

Impressive, but nothing compared to Holland’s Queen Beatrix’s annual birthday blowout bash, when the entire nation parties for two days to celebrate Beatrix’s big day! I don’t know the Queen personally, but ma’am, I sure had a great time at your birthday party last month! Thanks for inviting me! From what I remember of it, I certainly had a good time: Drinking, dancing and Dutch blonds is very, very good mix!

In her ‘Asian girl’ column in Delta last month, Asian girl lamented the fact that that so many students “just sleep together” (i.e. have sex), as opposed to being together as couples in relationships. True, it’s not very meaningful, but sleeping around is a normal part of university student life – if it’s to be done at any point in your life, now is the time!

When you’re a student, everything in some sense is still so experimental, because we’re not yet considered to be ‘fully responsible’, as we will be once we have our own families. Yet, we’re also no longer carefree, inexperienced high school kids living at home with our parents. So, we students go out, we party, we experiment, we meet girls or guys we like, we ‘click’ together, and suddenly we’re in bed together naked!

If there’s something odd about this, it’s the morning after, especially if one of the two is already set on not doing it again with the other. If a guy isn’t entirely infatuated by the girl, but would like to see her again, he probably won’t initiate further contact, instead preferring to wait until she does first. But girls usually won’t call either, because the guy is the one who generally is supposed to call first. What happens then is we get stuck in the spiral of he/she didn’t call me yet, is he/she thinking about me, until we just forget about each other and move on.

Why is this? Maybe it’s because when it comes to one-night stands, it’s the guys who tend to compromise on their ‘standards’ a lot more than girls, because girls usually have the final say as to whether sex happens or not. In such cases, the guys are the beggars, the girls the choosers, and we’ve all heard the saying, ‘Beggars can’t be choosey’!

It’s also true, although perhaps not fair, that many guys don’t want to date a girl who has slept with him on the first night! So, either there is a reason why two people wouldn’t call each other the next day, or simply the ideal case is just of some fun, no-strings-attached sex for both.

So, all we can do is remember the good times and look forward to the next time! There are plenty of fish in the sea, be it in China or Delft, and everyone has a future partner out there somewhere. But until we find them, bed-hopping and hoping will just remain a normal if sometimes painful part of this student life.

Tarek Ghobar is from Lebanon. The next ‘Tarek’s Diary’ will be published in Delta 23. He can be emailed at: t.ghobar@tudelft.nl.