The Art of the Pregame

There are a number of times I’ve gone out with my friends and the consensus at the end of the night was that the pregame was more enjoyable than the actual party. The thrill of a pregame isn’t spurred merely by the objective of getting drunk: there’s also the socializing, plotting, and mental preparation that heightens the appeal and sets the tone for the rest of the night. This invaluable time is spent finalizing outfit details, blasting your favorite music, and promising your friends that you’ll finally approach that one guy. We all know roughly what to expect at a pregame — but why exactly have these parties-before-parties become such a staple of our weekend plans?

I remember Googling “what is a pregame” early on in my freshman year. I wasn’t necessarily in search of a definition, but rather I wanted to confirm that it was something I should know how to define — that I had indeed inherited these occasions through my coming-of-age and my being on a college campus. The pregame is a unique social form, one that we have automatically and ubiquitously conformed to. While we always have an idea of what we’re walking into (small group, low stakes, drinking in preparation for a “game”), it also interestingly lacks a blueprint and rarely follows a particular agenda.

I have come to learn that ironically, this ambiguity is exactly what allows the pregame to take its shape as something desired by young adults seeking both a plan and an escape. As we’ve left behind “playdate” the minute we stepped foot on middle school grounds, checked off Bat Mitzvahs and Quinceañeras and Sweet Sixteens around high school, and still have quite a few years until we find wedding and housewarming invites in our mailboxes — I can’t think of many labels for social gatherings that are common among our age group. The pregame, then, feels justifiably ours, and emblematic of our youth.

There’s some comedy to the prevalence of pregames in the lives of college students. While there’s the classic round on a Friday night before going out to a party, people will joke about (and possibly even participate in) pregaming Family Weekend or their Econ midterm. Of course, there’s the argument that students are just looking for any reason to get drunk and avoid their anxieties.

But perhaps the pregame itself is just as much of a distraction and social lubricant as alcohol is often claimed to be. Through pregames, we grant ourselves the space to “get hype” — the nature of the pregame as a form is that we are awaiting a “game” and existing in the blissful realm of expectation, allowing students to make even mundane events more exciting than they are.

Pregames also have the capacity to temporally organize our lives. As adaptable and exclusive envelopes of time in which we prepare for another event, they curate such unique excitement and intimacy because they’re dedicated to lavishing our anticipation. In other words, pregames as functions offer us reserved times during which we can feel free to genuinely look forward to something, which is especially attractive in today’s social culture that otherwise prides being “nonchalant.”

At an already exclusive place like Harvard, though, there’s an interesting exclusive-squared effect when it comes to pregames. Getting invited to a pregame — especially those hosted by a club or social organization or popular friend group — feels like a ticket to the social “interior” of these groups (and in some cases, the literal interior of spaces only open to club members), of whom we only see “exteriors” at their parties, or the actual “games.” I’ve heard stories of people attending pregames at final clubs for parties they weren’t formally “on the list” for.

Besides being able to experience one such highly coveted gathering at Harvard, the mingling that happens during the pregame and before the party itself can be something of a status marker. While others wait in lines outside the club doors in the later hours of the night, eagerly hoping to find themselves “on the list,” the pregamers have already been enjoying the space, socializing with each other and familiarizing themselves with the tone of the atmosphere before the masses arrive. In this case, pregames offer an air of privilege and “insider info.”

But what about when you are one of “the masses,” perhaps not invited to a pregame but allowed in for the “game”? A friend of a friend could be hosting a dorm party you’re going to, but you might not have been invited to their pregame, which was extended only to their closer circle. These selective invitations can be elucidating of your tiers of connections on campus, just how far your extension of friends and acquaintances can take you — undoubtedly an experience that can feel harshly exclusionary and isolating.

While pregames are technically designed to be a collective effort to save resources and elevate the experience of going out, the reality at Harvard is that they can make you feel especially conscious of the social circles you do and don’t belong to.

That said, pregames also provide spaces for those who may otherwise be excluded. Harvard might not have enough parties in a single weekend to go around, but hypothetically speaking, anyone can always hold a pregame — even without a “game” plan to follow. We’ve all seen (or been) part of the congregation of tipsy freshmen milling around the John Harvard statue, relaying tips to each other in attempts to find, and devise entry for, a “game” to go to. As a social form that implies a plan to follow, a pregame cannot inherently stand alone. But even without a concrete schedule, the fun ultimately lies in the determined scheming that occurs in preparation. With frequent complaints that Harvard doesn’t have enough fun, the appeal of pregames alone, as just something to go to, certainly swells.

Pregames are analogous to this unique point in our lives as college students, when everything is fluid and filled with anticipation — and we have to remind ourselves to savor the moment. They provide us with the time and space to cultivate excitement and connection, before unleashing us into the chaos of whatever lies ahead.

Maybe that’s why we continue to embrace them: as an anchor in the whirlwind of our busy lives where we get to momentarily escape day-to-day anxieties and revel in hopeful expectation. However they’re considered, as casual preludes or social rites of passage, pregames remain a social phenomenon we don’t have much more time to claim as ours, as this chapter in our lives will inevitably fade. In the end, it’s not just about the party we’re preparing for — it’s learning to appreciate the moment with the people we’re with.

— Associate Magazine Editor Chelsie Lim can be reached at chelsie.lim@thecrimson.com. Her column “Form Fitting” explores the social and physical structures by which we are contained, reconciling how their literal and metaphorical forms manifest into our experiences of them.