Expectation Ruins Reality

So I went to Las Vegas for a friend of a friend’s birthday this weekend and if there is only one thing you ever learn from me it’s that you are the ONLY person who can make your expectations a reality.

My expectations were low going in; I’m not a gambler, smoker, pool person or much of a clubber (club person? Clubette?), and while I love Vegas for the adventure (and of course talking to strangers), spending money on souvenir drink cups and redirecting wandering hands isn’t my favorite way to spend a weekend. Besides, I’d been to Vegas before (with Cinderslut for a spring break in college) and we’d seen how easy it was for our usually carefree friend to crumble under the pressure of making her 21^st birthday live up to everything she’d hoped it would be. Back then we’d tried to do it all the first night, getting stuck with two days of a grumpy, hung-over birthday girl and crew. Luckily, we can laugh about it now, and even with all that drama I still have some incredibly fond memories from that weekend. Vegas is unpredictable, and I like to think its unconventional and uncooperative parts are what’s best about it.

So heading into this weekend with six other girls who knew each other much better than I did, I wasn’t too worried about making it the best weekend of my life. I was just going to go with the flow, head off by myself when I wanted to and meet up with them when it seemed appropriate. It was going to be great.

Our four-passenger, broken-down car got there Friday night after three extra hours of sitting on the side of the 109 degree Nevada highway waiting for a tow truck. At the hotel we showered off the sweat and crankiness as best we could but as we wandered the strip that night it was difficult to shake the memory of car insurance negotiations and the state trooper’s long winded stories.

I made the best of it, offering to take photos of strangers and making conversation where I could, but most of the girls I was with weren’t as enthusiastic – opting to head in early (while I stayed out with one of them and had a blast), promising themselves tomorrow would be better. On any other weekend, a move like that would have little consequence, but when you come to Vegas with high expectations, counting on all of them to come true in one night is a lot of pressure for a city that is anything but conventional.

The next day was quiet, filled with naps, pool time and one of the most awkward lunches I’ve ever been to – if they wanted to play games on their phones instead of talk to each other that was their choice (I can entertain myself anywhere). But their hours in Vegas were ticking away and I knew better than to rely on the promise of later, leaving them to nap while I explored the city and introduced myself to people who told me interesting things about travel and tattoos.

Because they were bored, the girls started getting ready for dinner hours beforehand, so it made sense that once we got to dinner (at the never worthwhile Hard Rock Café) our anticipation was at a breaking point. We’d waited all day (all week? All month?) for the appropriate time for the fun to begin, and when it didn’t, things got worse. The shy birthday girl was forced to take a shot in front of the entire restaurant and never really recovered, her mood going from neutral to straight up pissed in a matter of minutes. We caught a cab to Fremont Street because a few of us had never been, but it was long and expensive, leading us further and further from the exhilarating night we’d imagined.

A crowded, high-ceilinged, casino-mall place that hosted 90’s cover bands and an unimpressive laser light show, The Fremont Street Experience was nothing more than a scaled down strip, a more manageable social scene for overweight tourists and overprotective mothers. I felt like a sheep packed into a pen as we all wandered in circles looking for adventure and finding only off-putting capitalism. I may sound a bit harsh but this place felt like our group extrapolated to a 1000x scale, an entire street of people all making the effort to be available to new experiences  but not willing to create anything themselves. It was like Vegas for uninteresting people.

We waited in line for a few cheap drinks and even wandered our way into a club for some dancing, but we were over dressed and underwhelmed. It just wasn’t quite right, and pretty soon we’d noticed silent tears falling from the birthday girls cheeks. Attention only made it worse and when we finally admitted that none of us wanted to be there we packed into a cab and hoped the strip would turn our night around.

Our mood definitely lightened the closer we got to the main drag, but now the fatigue set in – our feet attempting to call us to bed even though it was barely 11pm. We mostly ignored the pain, wandering casinos until we ended up in a club by default (no one took the lead for fear of being responsible for even more disappointment). At that point I broke away from the group, dancing alone and with a few guys (one of which pretended to be decent until he made me feel the most violated I’ve ever felt). There was only so much I could do to make this night fun for these girls, and when I was feeling down on the world and none of them attempted to take the lead and bring me or anyone else back up- I knew the night was a bust.

After that the night was mostly over, the girls crawling back into bed with drunken disappointment on their lips. A few of us went back out for an hour or so to watch the street performers and I even went up and told a beautiful guitarist that his music was the best part of my night. I meant it.

The next morning we packed up and wandered a bit more, finally taking the time to enjoy each other and appreciate where we were now that we had nothing left to lose. I could tell they were all trying to make the best of it, trying to salvage something from the disaster they’d created by not creating anything at all.

When the birthday girl pulled me aside and asked if I’d had a good trip, clearly feeling insecure about how she’d acted the day before, I looked her in the eyes and told her I had – explaining that the same thing had happened at my friend’s birthday a few years before. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d had a wonderful weekend, I just didn’t mention that the best parts were the ones I’d deliberately gone out of my way to create.

Vegas isn’t all bark and no bite, but you have to go out and find your joy – you have to contribute to the world to get something great out of it.