Let’s say it’s Friday and we get invited to a party (woohoo). You’re pumped and respond by saying, “Awesome! I’ll see ya then!” I, on the other hand, end up saying something like this: “Errr, you caught me. I’m not doing anything tonight, so yea I’ll come to the pregame. I probably (definitely) won’t make it to the party, but that’s okay with you, right? Cool.”
Normal humans can hang, drink a few beers, and call it a night. I, on the other hand, perform a skewed version of this in which I drink the beer while sitting on the floor, preferably shielded by my coat, and then the second I feel claustrophobic (or on the verge of existential crisis) I leave.
Social anxiety strugz are real, and I get it: you’d rather stare at the streetlamp out the window than have people look at you during beer pong. You’re happy to go to CVS to pick up mixers by yourself to avoid awkwardly throwing off the rhythm of flip cup. But fear not. If you need the key to surviving the pregame, here’s what you need to do:
Your goal: to get the scoop on boy lingo. Be Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game: break that code. Dig deep. You’ll seem engaged as your social anxiety falls away. You’re not just sitting on the floor anymore, you’re on a mission. Throw in some wide eyes, head nods, the occasional “no ‘effin way!” and you’ll be one of the guys, or even better, a girl who is one of the guys, a bro’s f*cking dream.
From my fieldwork, I have gathered the following phrases: pull up, pull thru, come thru, throw down, and turn up. While these could be interpreted as sewing instructions or horseback riding commands, they are, in fact, just modern dude-speak.
“Pull up” translates to “Yea, come over.” It’s used if they like you, meaning you’re already doing something right. If they don’t like you, they’ll just say, “Um, sure… You can come,” which means you shouldn’t.
“Come thru” is just a plain old invitation i.e. you are formally invited to chill.
“Pull thru” is straight up capitalism, old-fashioned goods and services. If you were asked to bring the beer to the party, you’re expected to pull thru. If you don’t pull thru, everyone will hate you.
*The “ough” in through was dropped as a result of millennial brain damage*
“Throw down” means there’s bout 2 be a party. Google taught me that it comes from the Old English phrase, “Throw down the gauntlet.” So, go find your gauntlet and fricken throw it.
“Turn up” is a call from the heavens telling you to put down your Econ problem set and shove yourself into an over-packed room where you will hear no one, regret going, and say nothing but “heyyyyy!”
The bottom line is that it is not uncommon to hear something like this: “Yo, before we throw down later wanna hit the Ratty?” “For sure, dude. I’ll come thru.” For us, this exchange seems totally normal, but have your grandmother read it and she’ll ask “what the f*ck are you talking about?”
There is still much work to be done in this field. If you’d like to conduct some summer research with me, let me know. Please don’t be intimidated by the subjects. As I have learned from my time undercover, boys are a perfect species to study because they are often completely oblivious to your mental note taking. On the off chance that they call you out, just laugh and say you were “totally spacing out!!” because there was no way you were judging or going to publish an article about them.
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