In our new column The Game Changer by Durban’s own Oscar Anderson he delivers his weekly editions of love, life and everything in between. Check out this week’s feature entitled Boys Night Out…

I would like to say right from the start that this absolutely does not exclude girls. A boys’ night will always start out with just the guys but with any adventure into a bar or night club it becomes a free for all. Strange women at the bar, yes, but message a girl you actually know during the pre-drinks session and risk losing your man card. This is not to be taken lightly.

This is a night of mystery, supposedly the greatest night on any man’s calendar. Anything can happen. I am not joking. No one really knows what exactly happens on a boy’s night, it is only through photos and urban legend that the stories are told. The number of beers seems to multiply, girls become goddesses and if only your friends hadn’t have stopped you, you would have punched the bouncer off his feet.

So is it just a bunch of silly boys having a drink and then going home to their girlfriends afterwards? There is no afterwards, night implies dusk to dawn. The rules change slightly for boys’ nights which are scheduled on school nights in that on a school night, the only afterwards is a trip to the drive-in on your way to work. A shower if you are lucky. Weekends differ only in that you are awarded the sweet comfort of your bed after the drive-in. Only to awake to multiple tagged internet images, the sweet smell of rum in your sweat and that one of many messages from the okes last night saying “Round two tonight dude?”.

The words “Triple Crown” may not mean anything to you, but they are not to be taken lightly. Legend has it that for each honorary member who successfully completes such event, three of his friends instantly doubt him. To be able to go out three nights in a row and party your face off on each night is worthy of doubt, to do it after the first night has been a boys’ night is unheard of. Now, I am not willing to say that my friend is a liar but I am willing to ask for proof. It is the same story of whether a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it; does it still make a noise? Well Mr Tree, if you partied without your friends there to witness it, did you still hook up with the Russian model?

Another constant within a boy’s night is pain. Guys will find any excuse to inflict as much pain on their mates as possible. Granted everyone always takes bets against any two of his friends; the smallest guy and the biggest guy. The smallest guys for the obvious reason because it looks awesome when you dominate him in a bit of lounge wrestling, lamps and bottles falling over everywhere and when you finally punch his arm off. The biggest guy usually gets bullied; everyone wants to say that they at least got a punch in and can take a punch from him. Anything from tackling each other or dustbins, random punches in the arm, or my favourite; slapping the bum of the girl in front of your friend and watch him try to duck her slap. Doing it the second time is even better.

So, a bunch of silly boys? No, I prefer to see it as a fellowship of brothers. We may not scream and get overly excited like the girls do, but a fist bump and shoulder hugs say more than words. It is an understanding that no matter what happens you know that he is there for you, unless he happens to hook up with a hottie and all her friends are ugly, then, you are on your own.

It is a mixture between the Three Musketeers and Pirates of the Caribbean; one for all and all for one, unless that one happens to fall behind. The tightest of all fragile bonds.

The Game Changer by Oscar Anderson