Why it’s time to ditch the drinking games

Imagine, for a moment, that you are starting a new job as a high-powered lawyer. You move into your new office and meet your colleagues. Nervous, you try to get to know them. Where better to begin than where they are from, what they did before they started at the firm, and how frequently and experimentally they partake in sexual intercourse?

After all, this appears to be what passes for “getting to know you” in many halls of residence. Having secured a decent kitchen cupboard, met the resident tutor, and made awkward conversation with ten sets of parents, no sooner has adult supervision ceased does some capering goon, normally the type of person who calls complete strangers “fella” and wears loafers outside of the drawing room, suggest “drinks in the kitchen tonight?”.

Of course, getting to know your flatmates is important, so naturally you will agree. Clutching the four cans of Strongbow your parents left you (oh, how naïve they are), you duly reconvene, hoping that fermented apples will loosen your tongue and lessen the awkwardness of getting to know a host of strangers.

Unless you are a card shark or have been drinking illicitly since the age of sixteen, you are unlikely to know how this game works

You might even enjoy yourself, until the aforementioned goon produces a pack of playing cards and orders everyone to begin playing Ring of Fire. Now, unless you are a card shark or have been drinking illicitly since the age of sixteen, you are unlikely to know how this game works, so very quickly you will find yourself being forced to down a “dirty pint” of all available alcohol, leaving you queasy and ripe for further abuse.

These sorts of drinking games, generally revolving around “fines” and impenetrable rules, offend me for one very important reason: I don’t like being told when to drink. I enjoy drinking, and in many social situations it can be liberating.

But being ordered when and when not to partake is deeply wearing, especially if you’re trying to savour a 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but are instead forced to “down it” after foolishly overlooking the fact that the Thumb Master has decreed so. For those who don’t want to drink, or at least do so heavily, these games quickly leave you feeling left out or ashamed for not wishing to get as drunk as possible in the company of strangers.

Alternatively, you may be subjected to the horror that is Never Have I Ever, or its politer cousin Truth or Dare. In effect, each participant takes it in turns to pry into the private lives of all present. Generally, the ringleader will have brought an old friend along, inexplicably glad in identical clothing to them, and these two reprobates will egg each other on by naming more and more outlandish and personally targeted situations, purely to demonstrate to everyone else what Absolute Legends ™ they are.

Friendships should be based on trust, and develop naturally, not be artificially accelerated by cheap alcohol and pointless rituals

The rest of you will be mortified, for a number of reasons.  Again, people do not feel comfortable baring their deepest secrets to strangers, or alternatively will lack the life experience that others do. Many people do not have sex before university, and games revolving around “truth” or raunchy stories will leave them uncomfortable and a little embarassed, as though they are somehow “behind” those that have. This in turn can push people into poor decisions that colour the rest of their university career-all because a Love Island wannabe felt the need to trumpet their conquests in Malia to a group of strangers.

Halls drinking games fail as an icebreaker for many reasons – I am personally more offended about being told when to drink by somebody who sees warm Fosters as an acceptable beverage of choice, but the inconsiderate and unfair demand to share your darkest secrets is more problematic. Friendships should be based on trust, and develop naturally, not be artificially accelerated by cheap alcohol and pointless rituals that block the best way to get to know people-actually talking to them.