Within four hours of our initial arrival at Agios Gordios -- after a full midday session of sunbathing and body surfing and hanging out at the Jacuzzi -- Valentina and I finally conclude that we have ceased to exist in this corner of Greece.

There is almost an element of farce to this whole scenario. Whenever Valentina or I individually walk down to the beach or out to sit on the dining patio, each of us is able to strike up perfectly charming conversations with our fellow travelers. Whenever we go anywhere together, however, we're treated like chaperons.

Admittedly, our fellow travelers are not being rude. Rather, they are simply abiding by the laws of romantic expediency, and -- as an obvious couple -- we don't register much of a blip on the Pink Palace radar. Perched like ghosts on the balcony outside our room, Valentina and I watch our single peers frolic in the Jacuzzi and on the volleyball court below.

As the day nears its end, the poolside activity begins to pick up. The sun-reddened Brits and Canadians and South Africans who spent the afternoon nursing their hangovers are now whooping it up over beers in the Jacuzzi, and an energetic gaggle of Americans have just returned from cliff diving to start up a volleyball game that integrates ouzo shots and kissing.

"This is a rather strange place," Valentina tells me.

"Do you wish we hadn't come?"

"No, it's nice here. Everything is quite pleasant. I just feel older than I am."

In a sense, we are indeed older than our peers, but this has nothing to do with calendar years. At the Pink Palace, youth consists of possibility: the possibility for loud camaraderie and drunken epiphany; the possibility of sex, and the dance of ego and entendre that comes with it. Though we've enjoyed the beach and the setting here, Valentina and I can relate to our single neighbors only as objective outsiders, as scientists. To run down and join the ouzo-volleyball game or frolic in the Jacuzzi wouldn't change our status in the least.

From my perch on the balcony -- listening to the Jacuzzi folks quote lines from "Reservoir Dogs" and talk about how drunk they were last night -- I resist the dull instinct to pass them off as a bunch of half-witted meatheads. John Steinbeck once wrote that the nature of parties has yet to be perfectly studied -- but I'll posit that it's impossible to truly study party culture. As with love or the Kingdom of Heaven, parties were never meant to be analyzed. By definition, the moment one begins to analyze a party is the moment one ceases to become a part of it.

Beyond this, whenever I assess a party I'm not a part of, I invariably gravitate toward a single (and, I suspect, true) conclusion: that, as with lawn darts or pinochle, partying is just one of many creative ways to pass the time on planet Earth.

"What do you want to do tonight?" Valentina asks me.

"Well," I reply, "I think they put on a Greek cultural show in the Pink Palace nightclub after dinner."

"Oh, my God," says Valentina.

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