my memory eludes me

Recently, it was prom here at the little law school on the prairie. "Prom" as we like to call it was the first year formal. Traditionally the first years had to throw a banquet in honour of the upper years in return for not being subject to initiation. Now, the LSA runs it and it's just a big dress-up, booze-up right before the thanksgiving long weekend. Prom is known (much like St. Paddy's Day and the end of the year) as one of the big scandalous evenings of the year.

Last year, my personal scandalous behaviour was grabbing a male classmate's ass. In my own defence, it was in context. He was asking for a recommended line of action, I offered my suggestion and gave an example. True, this proved to be mild by the standards I set later in the year, but at the time, one month in, it was scandalous. The next day, on the phone we all compared our scandals and sagas from the night before.

A year later, prom has occurred and we meet for mid-day breakfast the next day to debrief the scandals and the sagas of the night before. After revelations from a classmate of their scandal, I proudly proclaim how I was not too drunk and was scandal free. It's funny how the human brain works.

Over the next week bits and pieces come out from formal, and I learn of other's scandalous behaviour and continue to look down from the moral high ground. I first became concerned when I didn't remember scandalous behaviour done "to me" rather than "by me" - such as a cowboy-style lap dance on a park bench by the guy belonging to the aforementioned ass. The fact that I didn't remember this was concerning in that maybe I was drunker than I thought.

However, if that was the worst that happened, I was still safely standing on firm ground, despite a few blank spots in my memory of the evening. That all ended last night. A week of feeling proud of myself, of proclamations of good behaviour beyond reproach all came crashing down around me.

After class last night, a number of us went out for drinks. Somehow the conversation turned to inappropriate behaviour and the importance of context. I jumped in and said at least when I grabbed [Name withheld to protect the innocent]'s ass, it was in context. The cowboy-lap dancer whose name is being withheld pipes up and says "It was last year, but not this year." My heart sank at these words.

"What do you mean this year?" It appears late in the evening (however pre-lap dance) I am told I grabbed the same ass again this year under the excuse of "It's not formal until I grab your ass". I say I am "told" because I really don't remember this happening (although it's starting to come back to me I think), but it does sound like something I would say.

Maybe our brains wipe these things out in an attempt to protect ourselves, however it's of no use unless we can block it out of other people's heads as well.