======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
“I’m just over bars, you know? Like, what’s the point? The music is too loud, it’s too crowded, and I’d rather just stay in and watch a movie. Oh my God, I’m a thousand years old.”
I’m willing to bet that every single one of you have heard someone say those exact words, or a variation of them in the last month. Maybe it was you who said them. If so, you are not going to enjoy the rest of this column, because you suck. You suck so bad. You aren’t cool for going to sleep at 8 p.m., you’re not cool for never wanting to do anything, and you’re definitely not cool for talking shit on people that actually enjoy their lives.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m finally in my mid-twenties, or just because there’s a cultural shift that makes lame people think doing nothing is cool, but I’m seeing this attitude more and more often. Friends and acquaintances, who just months or years ago were fun, energetic people, have turned into bores, and even worse, condescending bores. Every plan I attempt to make with these people is now met with at best, apathy, and at worst, outright contempt. It doesn’t matter the activity; these people always offer up lame excuses, bundled into a half-assed explanation of how they’re “such a grandparent nowadays.” Their gripes range from things being too loud, too late, too hot, too cold, too much work, too much time, or a million other adjectives they use instead of “too much fun.” If I bring a camping trip, they talk about how they don’t want to sleep on the ground and hurt their back. If I talk about a party at my house, they laugh and say “they’re not in college anymore.” They’ve “grown up,” and no longer find anything fun except staying in (usually with their significant other), watching a movie, and drinking wine.
And you know what? That’s fine. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but stop playing the “I’ve grown out of it” card. Be honest with yourself and with your friends. You’re not old, you’re just a boring as fuck 26-year-old. You hide behind the guise of maturity, but in reality, you just don’t like fun things. Drinking with your friends at a bar is fun. Going on trips are fun. Seeing concerts, hiking, trying new restaurants and generally experiencing life? All that shit is fun. You know what’s not fun? Doing the same thing every night and weekend and wasting away what little free time we get in life. In fact, if you talked to actual old people, they’d tell you to get off your lazy ass and enjoy yourself.
My parents are well into their fifties, and they have, objectively, way more fun than I do. My dad has gone to Mexico nine times this year (with 3 different women). The last time I called my mom to chat, she said she couldn’t talk because she was meeting her friends at a salsa bar. If you ran your boring “I’m old” excuse past them, they’d eat you alive and tell you to go do shit. Actual old people don’t have time to do the same shit every weekend, they know that life is short and you better get the most experiences you can out of it. They would see right through your condescending attitude and call you out for what you really are- lame.
I’m not saying you can never have a night off. I totally understand taking days to yourself to recharge, but if all you’re doing is recharging, you’re going to miss out on real experiences. Real life happens while you’re on the couch, and you don’t want to miss it. You’re going to hit a moment in your life when you want to do something and you realize you’re not as young as you were. You’ll have kids, and a family, and less time and spending money, and you’ll pine for the days when you were in your twenties and everything was still an option. The last thing you want is to wish you were younger when you spent all of your younger years pretending to be old. On that note, you’ll catch me this weekend at a bar I’m much too old for, taking shots of well tequila and pretending I’m 21 again. You might tell me to grow up, but you’ll never catch me thinking I’m too old. .
Image via YouTube
Respond
Nick Arcadia
The opposite of a life coach. Email or DM me if you want some bad advice: nickarcadiapgp@gmail.com
@noampao
noamio
I don’t feel old, but I often feel poor. Which, conveniently, leads right back to well shots.
Beers and wells baby. Fuck call or premium.
This is excellent, and 1000% true. No one is impressed that you’re “an old soul” at 24-25-26… you’re just tossing out the last fun years before being a married homebody/parent takes over your life.
Get out there and crush it this weekend, ya’ll.
The “old soul” people are the worst
This isn’t going to be a popular take but I disagree, man. Mid 20’s, yeah, for sure. Live it up and throw down like the world is ending. But life comes at you fast. Around the time of turning 28, at least for me, the actual act of going out lost it’s luster unless it was super low key and not super late. I would now much rather have my fun during the day time hours (golf, ball game, whatever) than roll with the night owls. Different strokes for different folks maybe but I can absolutely point to a time not too long ago when my tastes changed. Dillon wrote about this a while back. He obviously put it much more eloquently than I did. PGP
Why not both?
Well to quote Paul Rudd, “I can only rock and roll all night and part of every day. I have errands to run.”
That’s a great question and one I don’t have a great answer for. It’s almost like a phenomenon or something. I literally just don’t find the night stuff fun any more. Don’t kid yourself, I wish I did. But I don’t. That’s something that I’ve had to wrestle with over the last year or so. People change I guess. It’s strange but I’ve made peace with it.
I imagine a lot of it has to do with the inability to bounce back the next morning. In college, you’ll be hungover until about noonish, now, you’re looking at anywhere from 24-48 hours. One hard Friday night can put you out of of commission for the weekend.
“You’re Not Old, You’re Just Broke as Fuck”
Fixed.
Drinking like you’re in college, until everyone you know is married and stuff is the American Dream. Thanks for pumping me up for this weekend, Nick.
95% of my drinking is now centered around slamming beers back with the other parents at my kid’s sporting events.
It takes a certain skill set to be able to drink as an adult. It’s all about the proper balance between intoxication and remaining functional. Sometimes I just want to see how many beers I can drink but I have to tell myself no, you’ll just act weird in front of the kids, your wife won’t do that thing you like, and you’ll be passed out by 9:45.
Every time one of my friends say they’re over the bar scene, I roll my eyes and take a drink.
Also this article is fucking spot on.
I mean, I’ve outgrown bars where it’s too loud for me to hear my friends because they’ve got to have the music blaring to give everyone the impression that it’s really fun here, but that’s about it.
Rather ironically, a lot of these “old souls” not only don’t want to go out or have fun, but become a lot more judgmental and police their friends’ actions a lot more. Doesn’t sound very adult to me.
Great article. I’m 26 and try really hard to not lead a boring life. This often means that I’ll be the one initiating plans amongst my friend groups, but I’ll be damned if I wake up at 40 and realize I wasted my younger years not living it up and trying new things.
Sup?