What Kind of Shitty New Year's Eve Party Will You End Up At?

It’s almost time to wave goodbye to this shitty ol’ year and count down to a fresh new one. This is deeeefinitely going to be YOUR year, the one where you finally get that six-pack, quit that job, take that trip, tell that co-worker how you’ve always felt about them, get that rash checked out. That’s why it’s so important to kick the new year off right. Whatever your New Year’s Eve plans are this December 31, they will most assuredly fall into one of these categories…

A $100 open bar in the lobby of a Marriott.

You and 200,000 other tourists, New York transplants, and pervs trying to grind up on people in crowded spaces cram into the three-block radius of Times Square and contribute to the largest party/terrorism security risk of the year. You’ve been drinking all day and a trip to the bathroom would be a two-hour commitment, minimum, so you just piss on the person in front of you. By the time the ball drops, you are too drunk to count down and can barely see anything through those huge $15 sunglasses that have the year on them. While herding over to the R train afterwards, you step in a pile of shit from a police horse in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and so now you start the year smelling like piss and shit.

The Gatsby theme is fun and cool and soOooOoo classy until the moment you arrive and realize it’s just an excuse for douchebags to wear suspenders or flapper dresses.

There’s only one way to ring in the year in style: Watching Macklemore perform on national TV.

You and your three friends own a business tracking and trapping ghosts but then an evil painting at the Met that your crush is working on comes alive so you go to the Statue of Liberty and dump pink goo on it and play Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher” so it comes to life and you rush to Manhattan riding in the crown to fight the painting before the bad guy in it steals a baby and the people of New York can enjoy their New Year’s celebration.

You’ve been asked in advance to please, please keep things quiet at this party and respect the neighbors. Everyone has to leave at 12:15 because the baby is tired.

Everyone from the neighborhood is gettin’ together down the street to set off some fireworks and burn the old year in effigy, along with a few dozen dried out Christmas trees somebody collected on the street earlier in the day. Honestly, it’s good, wholesome family fun… until everyone realizes that it’s a convenient cover up for underage drinking and now the whole yard is filled with vomiting teens and angry parents.

Honestly, who are you?

The party where—after 15 years of odd run-ins with the annoying guy who once gave you a ride to New York City, eventually became your close platonic friend, accidentally orchestrated the marriage of your respective best friends, and ultimately slept with you and ghosted, making things awkward and unraveling your friendship—he leaves you to wallow alone at a party on New Year’s Eve that you’re frankly considering leaving because the emotional burden is just too much… or does he ;)

You are at a crossroads in your life between graduating college and finding a job so you have no friends and no money and you spend New Year’s sitting between your mom and dad on the couch watching The Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy and eating wonton soup and General Tso's chicken.

Your friend’s cousin’s friend with a fashion bindi says this is the place to be, and you take her word for it because she sold you some very decent molly at the Coachella Soho House party last year. It’s in an abandoned industrial neighborhood, and even though you ask the Uber driver to lock the car doors as you pass by homeless encampments, this also makes you excited because it tells you that this party is going to be Authentic and Legit. Your friend hands you some moonrocks and you take them. You smile to yourself and begin to think those rumors that both Four Tet and Nicolas Jaar are playing just might be true. You get there and it’s full of raving high schoolers dancing to Skrillex. You don’t kiss anyone at midnight for fear of getting arrested, but at least these moonrocks are feeling pr-ee-tty naice. It turns out your friend didn’t take any because he was feeling "under the weather” and falls asleep on a grimy couch that’s there for some reason. The teenagers keep asking you what he’s doing there. You spend half an hour trying to wake him up at 4 AM, wondering how you stayed this late.

There’s a wilting Christmas tree and only two board games: Apples to Apples and Monopoly. Someone baked brownies, but, since the host is allergic to nuts, everyone feels uncomfortable eating them. There was a bottle of green apple Pucker earlier in the night, but now you’ve polished it off and you have to wait for midnight to open the one bottle of champagne for a special toast. Nobody wants to admit they’re not having fun, though, so someone suggests a dance party right before midnight. You guys make it through half of “Single Ladies” before agreeing that maybe you should just put away the Apples to Apples cards and head home so you don’t begin the new year too hungover.

Your friends who think they’re up on alt culture but are actually a full year behind invite everyone over to play Cards Against Humanity because Apples to Apples is lame. The card says “I’ve never pulled ______ out of my rectum.” So you put down a card that says “my rectum” and everyone laughs and you win the game even though you don’t really get it. Then the host takes out an acoustic guitar and he tries to do a Bon Iver-y version of “Auld Lang Syne” before playing the first Girl Talk album off his Samsung Galaxy.

You're still broke and your only other option is a redux of last year's Syfy quality time with the 'rents, so you reluctantly make the 45 minute trek to a friend of a friend’s whose rich parents are out of town. Your friends leave early while you’re cornered by someone with a handful of shrimp and cocktail sauce on their sweater who hasn’t asked you a single question all night. You kiss them at midnight anyway just to get them to shut up even though you know deep down it’s because you’re afraid of dying alone.

You make out with a champagne bottle because "One night won't rule my whole year!" and wake up on the neighbor's front porch. In the morning, you find your resolution to get your life together sorely tested by the fact that your phone, keys, and jacket are missing. You spend the entire first day of the year like some hungover version of The Mentalist, trying to solve the puzzle of last night. Fortunately for you, you never find everything out. Unfortunately, you have to go meet your friend who’s visiting from out of town and go to some artisanal donut shop they read about in Time Out New York, and honestly you want to die because your headache is so bad and you got two hours of sleep.

HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT DID YOU GUYS HEAR THAT FUCK THIS I’M STAYING UNDER THE COUCH FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT OMG!!!1!!!1

Since you go to shows every night of the week, why should New Year’s be any different? The band thought they’d have time to stop before midnight but their song is going on extra long so midnight passes and some people notice the time and start kissing and the band finishes at 12:02 and apologizes and they try to awkwardly reenact the countdown.

Private party with you and your Lyft driver in heavy traffic on the 101 at 11:59 PM.

Your friend’s friend’s girlfriend’s friend knows about this awesome dance studio that’s throwing a totally sick New Year’s bash. It’s a great private space, and you need to go meet your friend’s friend’s girlfriend and her friend there! You and your friend and your friend’s friend each chug your own bottle of champagne and show up, wasted and ready to party, at 10 PM, only to find out there are seven people there, all of whom, other than your friend’s friend’s girlfriend, work for the dance studio. Everyone has to take their shoes off because it’s a dance studio, and the whole time the hosts are super nervous about messing up the floor. Naturally, they are not happy about everyone spilling their drinks, and finally they kick you out at 11:45 because they’re worried you’re going to vomit all over the studio. You ring in the new year on the sidewalk out front threatening to fight someone and embarrassing your friend’s friend’s girlfriend’s friend, your friend’s friend’s girlfriend, your friend’s friend, and your friend. You don’t vomit, though, so that’s a moral victory.

You are singer and actor Harry Connick Jr., and honestly you thought that you would be invited to something cooler than a couple of shitty charity galas for leukemia research. You order some takeout and curl up on the couch with your lovely wife, former Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre, and watch a movie. You’ll get ‘em next year, Harry.

This is the party billed in the Facebook invite as an “anti-party” where everyone there is “so not a New Year’s person” but then all engage in all the New Year’s traditions of being a drunk asshole anyway. The only difference is that at the countdown, they say “yay” sarcastically.

You enjoy some nice Christian activities at this party, like sipping sparkling apple cider and playing Bible Jeopardy. You win the limbo contest and afterwards when you are alone with the pastor, he tells you how impressed he is with your flexiblity and puts his hand on your shoulder for what you feel is slightly too long.

This is the party where you and your girlfriends plan an incredibly expensive last-minute Vegas trip because YOLO! You start the night on the strip yelling “Veeegaaaaaas” or “Veeeegaaaaas, baby!” every two minutes and end up passed out in your hotel room by 10 PM.

You and your boys all go in on a New Year’s package deal at Senor Frog’s. You all wear jeans and the same exact button up shirts from Express. You work out a wingman buddy system so everyone hooks up tonight. But since Todd is the ugliest, he won’t get laid. Sorry, Todd.

They don’t want you to count down to midnight. Another three… two… one…

Every year you tell yourself: You don’t care what your boss tells you, or how good the tips are, this is the last goddamn time you’re working a shift on New Year’s Eve. But every year you look at your post-holiday shopping bank statement and realize that that time-and-a-half is sounding pretty sweet. That sobbing drunk girl’s vomit wasn’t that hard to get off of your shoes last year, and anyway, she was super nice about it. And hey, no one really cares if you sneak a champagne flute or three and a Xanax after midnight anyway, right?