by Gary Goldman and Jeremy Allen

Wednesday night, Seattle. After catching a late night showing of a children’s movie (target demographic: between 2 and 6 years old) we were determined to give our night a rating higher than PG. After two days spent with Jeremy’s grandparents, we had to remind ourselves that we were college kids who had sexier concerns than their cholesterol.

Let’s party it up tonight,” Gary suggested, trying his best to sound smolderingly dangerous. After all, we had spent the previous evenings watching movies at home (a flimsy excuse to stuff our eager faces with pie) and sharing knitting tips with Jeremy’s grandma. We needed to be dangerous in order to maintain a sense of college normalcy. On the agenda: going to a cool underground bar, befriending Seattle’s it-people, and dancing the night away. It didn’t really matter if it was only a Wednesday night, if Gary was under 21, if our dance moves could be mistaken for muscular spasms, or if we didn’t drink... right?

Wrong.

The streets were dark and deserted, and it was getting harder by the minute to maintain our stance of nonchalant sexiness as we shivered uncontrollably in the violent wind. We ran up to every neon-lit bar we saw, our faces flushed with hope, only to be turned away with a gruff, “Sorry kid, 21 and over.” Dammit. Jeremy had just turned 21, but Gary was only 19, and the only underage college student still without a fake ID. “I refuse to pay $200 for something I was allowed to do when I was 2 in my country!” Gary would say firmly, feeling his French patriotism kick-in.

I’m so sorry, but my boyfriend forgot his passport—he’s from Paris,” Jeremy murmured seductively to the bartender, hoping that this would make us sound somehow exotic and exciting. “You know, the one with the Eiffel Tower and all...” he added with a wink.

No luck.

After getting rejected from a couple hundred bars in a one-mile radius, we felt outraged. Surely, it was unfair to deprive us of the freedom to mingle with other young adults! This feeling of injustice grew stronger as we realized that alcohol, the little bastard, was the one thing preventing us from meeting our new best friends. We could just imagine two pints of Guinness laughing at our expense while blocking the entrance to the friendly Irish pub on the corner, leaving two college kids stuck out in the cold. The irony of the situation was that we really had no desire to drink, but just wanted to make some friends.

It’s not that we didn’t drink alcohol because of some religious principle, or moral objection. No, we had no philosophical anecdote to recite or even a Men’s Health article we could quote as support for our restraint. We were Alcobores, a strange breed of people who found that we had more fun sober.

Actually, it was NOT drinking that brought the two of us together in the first place. “What are you drinking?” Jeremy asked upon introduction to Gary, trying desperately to demonstrate a sense of creativity by talking about something other than the weather. “Um... milk,” responded Gary, knowing that this was a defining moment. “I totally love milk!” Jeremy exclaimed as he took a bite of his chocolate chip cookie, confirming his membership in this clandestine society that defies the social norms surrounding drinking.

But there was no denying it: the “Minors Prohibited” signs continued to glare at us from every windowpane. We felt reduced, exposed—as if the tough shell of responsibility that we had so carefully cultivated in our transition to adulthood was suddenly and forcibly stripped away. “At the end of the day, you’re just kids,” the sign seemed to say. And at the root of this exposure was alcohol—a substance that we didn’t even care to partake in that evening. We just wanted a chance to meet some friendly faces. And where else were we to meet these new faces but in these very bars?

And then, in the distance, renewed hope—a group of ragged-looking twenty-somethings, holding each other up as they swayed from side to side. “Um ... hello!” Gary stammered in greeting, waving cheerily. “Do you know where we could –"

GAY, right?” a woman with mussed-up hair and fishnets proclaimed. We nodded sheepishly, examining our outfits to pinpoint exactly what gave it away. “Then honey, you BELONG at Neighbors.”

We gave each other a quizzical look. “Is it 18 plus?” Jeremy asked, pulling Gary near to him as the woman stumbled closer.

Of course! Follow me!”

Common sense teaches you to never trust those tantalizing words, but we were desperate. Tentatively, we followed our newfound friends, our hands clutched tightly together.

Right there!” the woman said, trying her best to point straight ahead. “It’s right behind that dumpster.”

There was nothing before us but a dark alley peppered with trash from the lone dumpster shoved against a wall.

Go on,” the woman prodded, flashing a cherry-red smile.

Jeremy managed to let out what he hoped was a harmless little laugh. “You know, we’ll just…”

We’ll just—yeah…” Gary finished, nodding emphatically.

We waited five long minutes to make sure that our new friends had gone on their merry way, and then made a run for it. As if on cue, there was a grand flash of thunder, and buckets of rain began to beat down violently upon our sorry party clothes, soaking us to the bone. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Some—most, actually—might say that we’re losers, but we think that we happened to win big time that night. Because waiting for us just a few miles away was a home that wouldn’t turn us away and a fridge full of something much better than booze: a gallon of milk and a bucket of cookie dough.