Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend and I occasionally have parties at his home. I’m not much of a drinker myself, but we supply some alcohol and invite people to bring their own if they care to. The last few times we’ve hosted, some of our guests have started playing drinking games like beer pong. I think drinking games belong in college. We’re all in our 20s and 30s, and I wish they’d leave the games on campus. I didn’t want to be a buzzkill, but the second time our guests started a drinking game, it broke up in a near fistfight over the rules. I want to establish a “no drinking games” rule for our next party, but my boyfriend plans to set up a table specifically for beer pong. I’m surprised by this, since he was more upset than I was over the near fight at our last party. Am I being unreasonable for wanting to ban drinking games at a party of adults? I’m not out to ruin everyone’s fun, but I think drinking games promote getting very drunk very quickly, which can lead to bad outcomes. We also don’t have room for anyone to spend the night if they’re too drunk to drive, so there’s also a safety concern. We don’t plan on inviting the people who caused the last altercation, so I’m not worried about an exact repeat, but I do think the odds are decent someone’s going to propose another drinking game in the future.
—No Pong, Please