PARTY ETIQUETTE: AN IN DEPTH LOOK INTO THE SEEDY UNDERBELLY OF HAVING FUN.

In order to maximize the fun for all persons involved in throwing or attending any given house party, there are a few rules and guidelines that should be addressed. Some are merely suggestions that may aid a person with their partygoing experience. These rules and guidelines may inhibit a few individuals from acting the way they normally would, but the overall result would be a much happier event for everyone involved. Let's get started.
Turn off your cell phone. This may seem like an odd request, but I simply cannot stress this enough. Booze and cell phones simply do not mix. This also applies to any other communication device. Drunken phone calls, emails, text messages, or instant messages usually serve little to no purpose, and more often than not, they will come back to bite you in the ass the next day. When you wake up the next morning, with vomit encrusted on your cheek, and you stumble over to your phone with a taste in your mouth like a cat shit in it while you were sleeping, seeing that you thoroughly embarrassed yourself by text messaging your ex 75 times doesn't help the situation.
Make a plan and stick to it. I know this may seem like a no brainer, but someone fucks this one up every time. Collaborate with friends, make plans, designate drivers, and follow through. Nine times out of ten, someone doesn't plan, and ends up crashing on the couch in the house of a person they don't know because they drove, and then drank too much, or because a friend left them high and dry without a ride. It isn't rocket science! If you're going to drink, don't drive! If you do drive, and you bring people, make sure they have a ride home!
Buy your booze ahead of time. As a sick and fucked up rule, liquor stores generally close before house parties really get started. Take this into account! After the first instance of being shit out of luck without anything to drink, no one should make this mistake again. If by some stroke of idiocy or bad luck, you do end up at a house party without anything with which to imbibe, don't fucking steal from people. If you have friends at the party, more often than not, they'll likely provide you with a little something. If you dont have friends, too bad, so sad. You might just have to go one night without anything to drink. Tragic, I know. There are few things in the world that I can tolerate less than thieves. I'm sure that most people that steal alcohol are normally good natured people that would never steal from anyone, let alone their friends. I don't know what it is about a person's desire to drink or just the house party atmosphere that makes a person think that it is alright to take the provisions that other people have paid for. One way to curb alcohol theft is making an example of those that perpetrate these heinous malfeasances by exposing them. Public humiliation may be the only way to show these people that what their doing is wrong. Sure, they may think they are only taking one beer or one shot, but those beers and shots add up. Even without taking into account the principles involved in stealing, taking a persons beer decreases the potential amount of fun (or vomiting) for the person that actually took the time to do things right. I could go further into the world of alcohol etiquette, but this essay serves as an all encompassing look into the house party dynamic, and not simply an introspective account of drinking itself.
Now lets move onto the actual party itself. Some of these guidelines may seem self explanatory, but if people didn't break them, I wouldnt be writing about them.
First and most importantly, KEEP YOUR FUCKING HANDS TO YOURSELF. People wonder why their parties turn into complete weinerfests. I'll bet I know why that happens. It's because when women do show up at these parties, they are groped, grabbed, prodded, violated, pushed, shoved, and degraded until they decide they don't want to come to the next party. It is really quite simple. If a woman doesn't know you, or doesn't want you to touch her, it's probably a dick move to grab her ass as she walks by. It's common courtesy. If a girl is considerably drunk, don't take advantage of her! Believe me. If you dont alienate women, they are more likely to show up and have a good time. This increases the men's chances of getting laid. It's the law of diminishing marginal utility. the more women at the party, the less you feel like there should be more women at the party. I know this is far too much to ask for some people, but I'm willing to bet these people wouldn't be getting any in the first place.
Leave politics at the door. Come to a party with an open mind. In any cross section of society, there will always be people with differing opinions. I will never understand why people wait until they are in an altered state of consciousness to talk about in depth intelligent topics that require thought and concentration. Attend parties to enjoy yourself, and not to bicker about evolution, religion, or politics. Catch up with friends you havent seen in a while. Dance. Listen to music. People watch. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Avoid former lovers. This proves to be exceedingly difficult in cases in which the ex lovers spend time in the same social circle. If you know ahead of time that the person you've been pining over for months is going to be at the party ahead of time, you might want to sit this one out, or at least refrain from drinking to the point of embarrassment. This serves to eliminate a lot of potential drama.
Act fairly professional. Parties are times for unwinding, and having fun with friends. This usually entails drinking, which is perfectly acceptable. However, drinking, acting like a total and complete fuckhead, vomiting, and forcing others to take care of you keeps others from being able to unwind and have a good time. No one likes to babysit. Also, acting like a belligerent, bellicose, bumbling fool is quite unbecoming. You are not likely to make many friends, if you are the one falling into people and knocking them over, yelling over everyone elses voice, and vomiting in the yard. Clean up after yourself. Everyone is guilty of this. Don't leave that beer bottle on the coffee table. Find a trash can. If you spill something, notify the homeowner and then clean it up. There really isn't much else to say about this one. Act like an adult.
Basically, it all boils down to the golden rule. Treat others like you would like to be treated. It applies in almost all of the aforementioned situations. So now I post this here, like Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the doors of the Wittenburg Castle Church. Its up to you now. Take it and run with it. Change comes gradually. Together we can work towards a better future.