Every played that getting-to-know-you game “I Have Never?” Chances are you have, but if not, here’s how the game goes.
1. Grab friends and/or strangers.
2. Put them in a circle.
3. Place alcohol in their hands.
4. Elect one to be “it.”
5. “It” will start a sentence with “I have never…” and finish it with an action. For example, “It” might say “I have never been to Paris.”
6a. If you have never done the thing listed (e.g., “go to Paris”), you do nothing.
6b. If you have done the thing listed, you take a drink.
7. The winner is the person who’s most sober or most drunk at the end of the night. It all depends on how you look at it.
Now, I hate this game. I hate this game primarily because, in truth, I haven’t done most of the things that people consider normal. I haven’t gone to Paris. Hell, I haven’t even left the country. I’ve never been skydiving or visited New York City. I’ve never had a “real” Philly cheese steak sandwich or been on a road trip with friends. Oh, yeah: I’ve never had sex, so that rules out about 37% of all “I have nevers.” So the normal stuff, I mostly haven’t done – and by the end of the game, everybody knows.
On the other hand, I hit a lot of random values… things which I would rather not list off in a row… things like painting my toenails, shaving my legs, kissing a member of the same sex on the mouth while sober, wearing high heels, memorizing the songs from a musical, wearing speedos on a regular basis, what have you.
Inevitably every game of “I Have Never” I play becomes “Guess if Brian is Gay.” Not that I’d mind wearing shimmering shirts, going to discotheques, or decorating my wardrobe with glittery rainbows. I like all of those things. I just dislike their immediate association with “Hide the Gerbil” and industrial sized tubs of Astro-Glide, and the slight judgment everybody passes when they ask that first “what-if” about my sexuality.
The truth is I’m not much of a dude, and playing “I Have Never” always reminds me of that fact. Painfully. Every game of “I Have Never” becomes a semi-involuntary TMI Thursday for me, recurring proof that I’m not normal and that most people immediately reconstruct “not normal” as “queer.”
I think that’s partly why I blog. I feel like people are just waiting for the chance to stare. So hey, I figure, why not give them something to gawk at? Tell them about the beach trip where you cock walked (literally), or about the recurring dreams about tornadoes you’ve had. Show them your shitty poetry.
Try to convince them that you’re an exhibitionist, when what you really are is afraid to be seen straight on. It’s sleight of hand: draw their eye over here so that they won’t be looking over there, in that corner, where you’re really hiding something… even if you don’t know what that something is.
Then tell everyone that’s something you’re aware you do and make the whole dynamic of hide and seek all that more complicated.
Too much true information. Soon I’ll get back to normal TMI Thursdays. You know, the funny stories you all share. Maybe I’ll tell you all about my two testicular sonograms, or perhaps about the time I set a floor on fire while masturbating.
Just don’t ask me how I put the fire out.
-brian.b
But how DID you put the fire out?
[...] brian.b’s TMI Thursday #2: “I Have Never.” [...]
That game always turns into TMI Thursday for me, too, but mostly because I’ve done way too much stupid shiz.