What’s Everybody Raving about?

A non-Conn rave.

There are only two words that come to mind when I think about the night of the infamous rave in Cro last weekend: disturbing and disgusting. After writing this, I hope to suppress all related memories and never conjure them up again.

I am not an avid fan of dances or alcohol or ecstasy or any combination of the three, and so the very idea of going to the rave shouldn’t have crossed my mind at all. However, my love of glow-sticks and my curiosity as to how this shindig would go down overpowered my fear.
Dressed in jeans, a cardigan and sunglasses (the ideal rave outfit?), I ventured to Cro with two of my friends. None of us knew what to expect, but we had been warned to “watch out” and “not get molested.” Always comforting words.

When we finally located the correct room, we were forced to jam ourselves up against the banister of the balcony and shimmy our way through a crowd of overly sweaty, excited people, all too eager to join the massive dance party.

Dressed in neon colored shorts and t-shirts and sporting glow-stick necklaces and bracelets, the students of Connecticut College looked like they had been sucked into a time machine and sent back to the ’80s, but with dancing far from anything in Footloose or Flashdance; we’ll get to that in a minute.

After shoving our way through the mostly intoxicated crowd, I began to have second thoughts about entering the dance floor. The only way I was going to make it through the mass of people is if I suddenly developed a Moses-like ability to part them like the Red Sea. And nothing short of promising them free alcohol on the first floor of Cro was going to make them budge.

I cowardly scurried to the uninhabited side on the second floor of Cro and watched the madness unfold. People were shoving themselves into others in an effort to make it into the dance to get their grind on with strangers who they may or may not remember seeing in the morning.

Others were shamelessly fondling each other in public; one girl was holding hands with a boy with a faux-hawk, and proceeded to drop his hand and follow another boy to the dance floor. Nearby, a guy decided to jump onto a table next to the balcony and sway back and forth until campus security forced him down.

After watching other alcohol-induced shenanigans unfold, I decided to try my luck inside the dance. What a mistake.

Walking into the dance was like walking into a burning building filled with people scrambling to get out before they asphyxiated, except people were charging through the doors both ways, making the process next to impossible to navigate.

Once I successfully shoved my way through the crowd, and by successfully I mean I was only punched five times and violated three, I paused at the beginning of the dance floor, unsure where to go from there.

The music was blaring, people were dripping sweat like they just took a hike through Death Valley and there was so much unnecessary and uncomfortable physical contact, that I immediately turned around and marched out.

Well, that would have been the ideal situation, but as soon as I tried to leave, I was faced with a massive bloc of people also trying to exit. Naturally, everyone’s first instinct was to push and shove the others out of their way, so rather than walking, we were all aggressively floating out the exit.

If I thought I’d been uncomfortable trying to get into the 1941 room, I was traumatized (and again violated) trying to find my way out. If someone had told me that I was going to be physically attacked while at college, I would have never expected it to be at a school-sponsored dance. Jogging alone around the green at night? Maybe. Joining the martial arts team and trying to fight an experienced black belt? Yes. But at a dance? Madness.

After dodging a few punches from some drunk boys, I decided to be aggressive and fight my way through the throng of people, so I flailed my arms, grabbed onto my friend’s arm in front of me, held my breath and charged.

That may have been the scariest experience of my life. Everyone was so tightly packed, it was actually difficult to breathe. (It doesn’t help that I’m only 5’ 2’’ and everyone within a ten-foot radius of me was an Amazon.) For the thirty seconds it took to leave, I seriously believed I wasn’t going to survive. I would die at the rave, trampled under a herd of brightly-colored Camels who had a little bit too much to drink. What a tragic way to go.

In case anyone wasn’t sure, I did make it out alive and with a greater fear of crowds, dances and jungle juice. I hope never to find myself in such close physical contact with that many impatient, sweat-drenched people again. No matter how desperately anyone wanted out of that room, it took some time and aggression. The only way the experience could have been worse is if someone had shouted, “Fire!” Then, unspeakable chaos would have ensued.