\n<\/p>\n
It is hard to remember it sometimes,<\/strong> on a grim Tuesday evening in the depths of winter, when you’re first added to that WhatsApp group \u2013 all those unsaved +44 numbers! All those uni mates you\u2019ve heard of but never met! All those damn GIFs! \u2013 and get told you\u2019re either doing Latvia or Love International Festival, so keep those weekends free<\/em>. It\u2019s hard to remember it, too, when you\u2019re Monzoing \u00a3200 into the ether to deposit an Airbnb and the excuses start rolling in (“sorry lads, the missus is due that weekend. have fun without me”), and someone asks, \u201cShould we do fancy dress?\u201d only to be met with silence. The partybus hire, the insipid \u201cI dunno\u2026 paintball?” suggestion from someone\u2019s dull brother, the day when you all have to send scans of your passports in and everyone takes the piss out of your middle name. All of the months, weeks, and days leading up \u2013 it is hard to remember it. But, but, but but but: stag dos are mint<\/em>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been on every configuration of stag do. There was the back-home-mates stag where we ambled around Amsterdam<\/a> cluelessly ahead of the Netherlands winning Eurovision, with 20% of the group dropping out on the day and the best man texting me the Tuesday before we travelled asking, \u201cOh, by the way \u2013 do I need to plan<\/em> anything for this?\u201d There was the mansion in Durham in the height of summer, where we all got drunk for hours and then went down to what appeared to be basically a sex dungeon to play pool and yell karaoke, and the groom had such a good time he had an anxiety attack right at the end and took himself home three hours before anyone woke up with the simple text, \u201cthank you for the best weekend of my life\u201d. There was the fun-and-games stag in my early twenties where my main memory is when the groom \u2013 in a chicken outfit with a captain\u2019s hat on, worn down by days of endless banter and you-can\u2019t-marry-your-wife-unless-you-do-it! challenges \u2013 finally snapped and said, \u201cRIGHT: I\u2019M NOT<\/em> HAVING FUN!\u201d, and we all had to sit downstairs with the football on a low volume while he was gently talked out of the bathroom. And another where we all got turned away from a club because there were 20 of us so we all just stood around in t-shirts not really knowing what to do.<\/p>\n There are recurring themes to these \u2013 meeting a man with an inexplicable nickname (\u201cWhy\u2019s he called \u2018The Colonel?\u2019\u201d \u201cBecause he looks like a giraffe\u201d \u201cWhat?<\/em>\u201d); being offered mortgage advice from someone with one eye open while you both bob around at chest-height in a swimming pool; someone arrives early or leaves late and you never see them again in your life and it\u2019s like they never existed in the first place \u2013 but what always happens is this. At some point during the second night, my arms stretched out around five or six men I\u2019ve barely ever met before handshakes at the train station 16 hours ago, I yell, \u201cI LOVE YOU BOYS!\u201d up at the moon and everyone cheers and says it back.<\/p>\n