Bachelor Parties: They're Not What They Used To Be

Men have gone through a change or two during the past twenty to thirty years. To grasp the change to its fullest, intermingle members from Generation X or earlier with the Millennials (Generation Y) or later. The difference becomes powerfully evident when it comes to tradition and social gatherings.

Recently, I attended one of the oldest traditions of male bonding and gathering. I attended a bachelor party for a thirty-one-year-old. While I remember the traditional bachelor parties of the past, this current-day experience was interesting to watch.

So, what happened to men? Is this new-age male bonding what they consider the bachelor party? Are all the parties like this one?

While there might be a need for a greater look at the practice than just the one experience, comparing the traditional bachelor soiree to that of today's bachelor parties might interest people.

What Bachelor Parties Were

Bachelor parties have a long tradition in the world of men, and eventually, there came the bachelorette party. They served a purpose and marked a change in the life of the people getting married. Why do they exist?

The bachelor party is a symbolic farewell to single life, marking the beginning of a new chapter, as we let go of that last vestige of immaturity. They're rooted in tradition and are a right of passage for those that are about to get married. It's the chance to have one last blowout before tying your fate to that of someone else.

They are also a chance to celebrate your upcoming nuptials with your closest friends, a chance to bond with people that are near and dear to you, and to say goodbye to the single life.

For both the bride and groom-to-be, the tradition of the bachelor party is also a test of how sure they are that they are ready to give up their complete and total freedom. Married couples are free, but no longer have the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, without it affecting someone else's life.

Bachelor parties are known for being potentially debaucherous affairs. That's the history behind them, leading up to this generation. One more wild and crazy night of reckless abandon, and then one day you'll swear to someone you're ready to be a full-fledged adult.

The last traditional bachelor party I attended was in a Holiday Inn conference room. The room was rented out and decorated. There was a snack table and a bar, as well as the traditional keg. About forty of us got together to give an old friend a send-off before he tied the knot.

There was music, girls were hired to dance, and the booze was flowing liberally. It was a good time until some would argue it got downright awkward. At any party, much the way it happened in Tom Hanks's movie Bachelor Party, there were crashers.

The bachelor was sandwiched in between two strippers and down to his tidy-whities. Everybody was laughing and chuckling, curious how far the bachelor would let that go in front of his friends and work buddies, including myself and the father of the groom as we watched from the bar.

That's when it happened, the double doors to the conference room burst open and the party crashers came into the fray. They included the bride-to-be, the bride's mother, the groom's mother, and several of the bridesmaids. Fortunately, the bride had a sense of humor.

The hotel manager didn't have one as much, especially after one of the guys lit off a string of firecrackers in the conference room. She threatened to call the police. When she did, several local police stood up and smiled at her with their badges in hand. No, we did not get the security deposit back on the conference room, and we were no longer allowed to throw bachelor parties at the Holiday Inn.

Today's Bachelor Parties

So, many years later, I'm invited to another bachelor party. This was not what I expected, or at least not what I'd have expected out of the crowd that was there. I knew all the fellows, and they surprised me.

They opted for an outing that included camping. We sat around and talked about things like marriage, relationships, and how they should work versus how they seem to work. There was a general bonding that went on, but not the raucous loud bonding of the past.

The discussions were sobering and deep. It showed a change in the mentality of men since the last bachelor party I attended, or at least in that of some men's mentalities. Hmmm, have men started to evolve past the wickeder ways of the Gen X'rs and before?

I asked the best man about the party. He enlightened me about bachelor parties of today, and how there's been a move by a lot of young men not to have the kind of party that could lead to starting out their marriages with a skeleton in the closet. Then there's the plethora of other things that can go horribly wrong.

Conclusions

What I learned from this experience was that there is no "right or wrong" way to have a bachelor party and while there are some that prefer the strippers and beer approach, some have chosen to go a different route. One of the most tangent arguments that I got to hear was a reminder about the wild and crazier approach, and how many of those marriages lasted. The bachelor parties of old may be dying because some, not necessarily all of GEN Y, is in a more mature place before they decide to try marriage.

That's a wonderful thing. I guess an old dog can learn a new trick.