Written by Ihyeon Rha
Illustrated by Jessica Chan
I have noticed that we, as a human species, often place ourselves into the mentality of being painfully serious and genuine with everything that we do. I strongly disagree with this social construct. In fact, one of my hobbies is lying to people for no reason, and after partaking in this hobby for slightly less than a year, I would like to recommend it to everyone.
For example, whilst learning Spanish during my gap year, I was temporarily in Málaga, a beautiful coastal city known for attracting hundreds of bachelorette parties (or ‘hen dos’ for my British readers) every year. Every time I’d see a group of bachelorettes, I would turn to my friends and say, ‘We need to throw a fake bachelorette party some day.’ While my friends laughed it off, I was utterly serious about this notion. So, when my friends from Madrid came down to visit me, we threw one.
We decided that our theme would be ‘wigs’. Thus, I pulled up to the local party shop and purchased five of the most heinous wigs I could find, some of which were vaguely reminiscent of Cindy Lou Who and Cruella de Vil. Despite it being a Tuesday night, my friends and I donned on our wigs and sashes and strutted across the Málaga city centre. Obviously, as the average age of my friends came down to twenty years old, nobody we met dared to believe that one of us was getting married.
We fabricated stories about our lives, claiming that we were students from the University of Miami on a semester abroad in Spain. There were also some interesting encounters throughout the night. For example, there was a group of British boys that were somehow convinced that we were all collectively infatuated by them. In fact, I even heard one of them nudge his friend to say, ‘She totally wants me.’ This was in reference to my friend who was evidently the bride. Another of the boys outright told my Finnish friend that he wanted to ‘shag’ her, a term that she did not understand but was appalled by after my explanation.
However, on the bright side, we also conversed with a middle-aged man that was celebrating his father’s birthday. It was a surprisingly wholesome encounter as he told us stories about his own marriage and recalled how in love he was with his wife.
Throughout the night, drinks were constantly being bought for us, and we entered every club for free. While I cannot bravely say that I did not feel any self-consciousness at all, as the night went on, I pondered, What do I have to be self-conscious about anyway? When did being silly become something solely acceptable for children to be? As a matter of fact, our farcical act was the main cause behind our great enjoyment amidst the mediocrity of Málaga’s nightlife. While some people may have had a hard time believing us, I ultimately decided that there was no reason why bachelorette parties need only be limited to real bachelorettes. Or perhaps a greater takeaway from this is that we should wear wigs more often.
