Clubbing with the college kids

My roommate emailed me this picture of me, which he stumbled across on the promotional site for a club.  To the trained eye, I look fairly discontent in that photo--it is not my usual state to be standing around when others are dancing. To the untrained eye, though, I guess I just look like a moody woman in red lipstick--and who doesn't want that at a party!

Here's the story behind why I was standing in a corner looking anxious that night. I was hanging out with two friends when one of them suggested meeting up with a friend of hers who was only in Delhi for one night. What we didn't know was that this friend was in Delhi for one night only as the babysitter coordinator, of a college study abroad program. So when we met up with my friend's friend there were about 15 twenty year-olds tagging along.

Holy crap.

Let me tell you, there is nothing that will make you feel older than hanging around with a bunch of college kids (Sorry Daisy-O, but it's true). There is also nothing that will make you feel more on edge than chaperoning a group of young-uns through the dark underworld that is Delhi night-life. (And let the record show that this was the night of one of the more touted World Cup games, so all I really wanted to do was find a quiet TV with English commentary. But that was not to be). 

 

Three things kept running through my head. (1) Dear lord, I hope no one gets groped. (2)  I wonder what the score to the match is right now. (3) This would never happen to me on a night out in NYC.

The third thought, of course, is the good and bad thing about living abroad and having to build a social network from scratch.  You get forced to do a lot of things that you really wouldn't in the course of your normal comfortable and well-tailored social outings; this includes both wacky cool experiences you wouldn't have thought of (Why yes! I do want to go to a meditation and organic foods class!) and shit you normally wouldn't put up with (see above).

Though, anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm really not good at putting up with shit that I normally don't put up with. And truth be told, I spent the vast majority of that night cranky and trying not to take responsibility for the swarm of students--that is when I wasn't anxiously scanning the room to make sure no one was being manhandled in a corner. 

But, I guess I did get my dance on eventually as well--so the evening was not totally lost.