Why anyone willingly participates in 'NEVER HAVE I EVER'

For those of you who have, fortunately, never encountered 'Never Have I Ever', it is a drinking game in which everyone sits in a circle with a drink and you go around announcing things that you’ve done (or that you haven’t done, idk the rules seem to change every-time I am roped into playing it) and when you’ve done something that someone else announces, you have to drink. I think the point of it is to (a) get drunk fast, and (b) see what other people have ‘done’.

However, aside from these two objectives of the game, I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to play it. When I was talking about this in the common room with some friends of mine, loads of them said that the point was so that you could see what other people had ‘done’, but the problem with this is that people can very easily lie in this game! In fact, you don’t even have to be convincing, all you need to do is drink or not drink at the appropriate times. I remember one time I took a sip of something as someone did a ‘never have I ever’ and about three people turned around and went, ‘No way, have you seriously?!’ I didn't really realise what was going on at first (classic) and so sort of awkwardly laughed, and to this day I have absolutely no idea what I accidentally owned up to in that game. If someone has done something embarrassing, or is keeping something on the DL, then all they have to do is not drink!

Another problem with the game is that undoubtedly you are sitting in a circle with people that you don’t really know (which is why they wouldn’t just tell you the gossip about themselves in the first place) and therefore, you don’t really particularly care about knowing anything about. The last time I played this game I learned a whole load of things that, to be honest, I’d rather not know about people. It’s kind of weird seeing them the next day and thinking, ‘I KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT YOU’.

There’s also the problem in that I always end up panicking the entire time anyone else is speaking, racking my brains trying to think of something that no one else has said. You’ve got to say something that lots of people have done, or else no one drinks and then they get annoyed with you because everyone is just sitting there sober playing some sort of twisted children’s game, but you can’t say something too boring or else they get annoyed because it’s dull, and no one cares that, ‘never have I ever sat on a chair’.

Then there’s the problem when, about ten minutes into the game, you give up, claim you don’t care what these people think of you, and admit the mediocre, ‘never have I ever sat on a chair’. To this there is always an awkward pause, as people wonder whether, because the line was so bad, they should bother honouring it by drinking to it, or whether they should just ridicule you. It ends up as a mixture between both - everyone drinks but you get ridiculed anyway. People around you look at you like ‘oh my god there is a freak in our midst, she has totally misunderstood the concept of the game and I am sitting near her - WHAT IF PEOPLE THINK WE ARE FRIENDS?!'

Inevitably the (evil) organiser of the game takes pity on you for being such a nerd, moves the game along and you’re sitting there in a group of people that you don’t really know/like wanting to shout I SWEAR I AM NORMALLY MORE FUN THAN THIS.

You look around at this group of people, who sort of look a bit nervous and worried too,, and wonder if they are thinking the same thing as you. Of course, you cannot say, ‘this is a stupid game, isn’t it?’ to the person sitting next to you, just in case they turn around and go, ‘well yeah I suppose it is if you’re so boring that you can’t think of anything to say ever’. So you’re all just sitting there, probably thinking the same thing, and dreading the next time your turn comes up. 

Of course, all of this panic means that you miss the incredible piece of gossip that was revealed suddenly, and spend the rest of the evening going, ‘but what did she actually say?!’ to people, until you give up because they’ve all passed out from drinking too much, but you’re still sitting there, holding your glass of vodka and coke, because you never did drink any of it just in case you drank at the wrong time, and everyone really did think that one time a guy paid you for sex.