The phone call from a well-meaning friend intent on using any means necessary (guilt, haranguing, disparagements of manhood) to convince the person who has decided to stay home to go out.

This friend would never dream of calling on Thanksgiving and saying, "You are staying home with the family? Do you really want to pass up the opportunity to eat turkey dinner at Nudes-A-Poppin Show Pub?"

But New Year's is not about family.

It's about having fun; a certain kind of fun; a kind of fun that looks exactly the same wherever you decide to have it.

It's about the pressure to have that fun.