Partying Past Your Forties C/D?

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Unburdened by a spouse, pet, or children, I've been going out oftener than ever. My weeks sport at least two nights when I'm out past midnight, often later: bars, friends' homes, karaoke, a late dinner. Compensation for the worst days and nights of the pandemic? Maybe.

I do pay a price in the form of necessary disco naps and going happily to bed at, say, 9:30 p.m. on quieter nights. Drinking and smoking have actually tailed off a bit.

Anyone else here over, say, 40 who still parties like it's 2009?

I wish.

I don't have kids, either, but my social world has changed quite a bit since 2009. I do see people from time to time, but it seems to require more effort to coordinate, and very few people I know are still interested in the kind of "partying" that I miss (by which I mostly mean just having a few drinks and getting tipsy).

That's really what I mean: getting tipsy and/or high after 8 p.m. with friends.

I went out and had 1.5 beers in a pub last night, then came home at 11, I was wrecked, had to get up during the night to drink water. Feel like a proper night out of the sort I had in my early 20s could kill me.

i've eaten most of a bag of jelly beans this afternoon does that count?

i meet up with ppl a few times a month maybe, ideally after work from about 6pm thru 8pm for a few drinks in a quiet pub before i get the train home

i hope this does not count as partying for the purposes

LOL omg no - you are superhuman imo for being able to manage it. I did party much harder during my 40s than I did in my 20s - my party-hard decade was apparently ~35 to 45. Criteria now for a night out with friends or family: comfortable seats, not loud, no stairs to bathrooms, home before 9

0ver 50 here but the answer is no, if we mean going past midnight any more than just occasionally. It doesn't feel the same anymore. All sorts of practicalities get in the way (planning, people having families), but maybe most of all the problem is lack of spirit. Also the lack of the self-destructive impulse that was so romantically appealing to indulge in when I was young. I read a recent interview with Parker Posey in which she was asked if she still stayed out past 2 am these days and her response was basically, "are you kidding me?" which is relatable and was comforting to hear from the Party Girl herself. I'm sure there are people who can still handle it thanks to a rare metabolism or whatever, and more power to them. Some kind of friendly cocktail hour is still a wonderful thing to keep doing, but when you start having to count your drinks it's no longer partying in the previous sense of reckless abandon.

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I'll go out/hang an average of three at most four nights a week, which includes a quick happy hour to the one Serious Night when I'm out past midnight but no later than 1-1:30 a.m.

I did not go out last night: I watched Repo Man again and was in bed by 10.

I still awaken around 5:30-6 a.m., mind.

In my mid-50s I'm still physically capable of late nights out — it helps that I'm a night owl to start with — but just have many fewer reasons or opportunities for it. Most socializing these days tends to revolve around dinner, either out or at a friend's house, which even with boisterous conversation and multiple bottles of wine will usually wrap up by 11. Hanging out at bars that late isn't really appealing, not least because most people who are there at that point are in their 20s/30s — kids! Occasionally when I do end up out late I'll pop into a bar for a drink and it's like visiting the Night Kitchen, all this activity going on among people who don't even go out until 9 or 10. In general I'm happy to leave them to it.

My karaoke bar runs the full gamut: men and women in their early '20s and guys in their late '50s, the latter there to hang out on the patio to smoke and god knows what else to get away from their wives or to talk shit about the wives who left them.

I will be 40 this year. Absent my seasonal job at a bar, which keeps me up until midnight on the nights I work, I probably stay up past 11p a total of ten times per calendar year.

Mind you, I partied HARD from 18-34, and I have no desire to return to the raucous insanity of those years, tho I am glad that I had them.

Party past your forties = drown it down with brown?

one memory that blows my mind is rushing to go to the convenience store to get cases of beer before they stopped selling them - at midnight. several times we got in right at 11:59. I still feel like a night owl (I usually fall asleep around 12:15 I'd say) but yeah, I can't believe that's when we started most of the time

I still go out every now and then, I kinda miss the fun and stupid days but I remember going to a college-style party of a co-worker when I was 32 and yeah it just didn't feel the same, in fact I spent a lot of the time thinking "this is probably the last time you'll ever be at a party like this" which turned out to be true

A friend still hosts one of those college-style parties in his backyard a couple times a year, usually once around the holidays.

The families/friends with parents leave no later than 11-11:30 while we stragglers hang out.

Guess I'm an anomaly eh

I mean honestly, more power to you. I don't even really like drinking that much anymore!

also I think the fact that weed has gotten more popular helps a lot; I'm not in a legal state but it's very easy to get it here, plus some bars have THC drinks which seem to be very legit. if I have 5-6 drinks in a night I'm gonna feel it the next day but 2-3 drinks and some weed gets you even more fucked up but you don't feel it so much in the morning, it's amazing. seems that's what a lot of the older folks who are out are doing these days.

Per Alfred’s comment about guys in their 50s at karaoke joints, I will say that if I were single and childless in my 50s (or single and my kids grown and gone), I’m sure I’d be out more in general and later too. But, y’know, I enjoy evenings on the couch watching movies with my wife and cats.

lol I have the house to myself, wife on vacation, no kids, and I sometimes go to bed at 8

I *want* to go out and see shows, but then I get tired. working at 7:30 AM doesn't help.

2-3 drinks and some weed gets you even more fucked up but you don't feel it so much in the morning

Two drinks and a gummy/some weed is the perfect zone for me when out -- and I wake up crisp.

I think this is the problem for me— if I drink anything alcoholic after 9p or so, I cannot sleep. So I rarely drink after that hour.

Also similar to sleeve, I got used to waking up early — I enjoy my mornings, nothing happens at night that I haven't seen or taken part in before.

"nothing good happens after 2 AM" - Ted Mosby

I'm up so early because I take a four- to five-mile walk around 6:30. One of the few good things about Florida is the beauty of a January morning. I still manage to take them even if I'm back home at 1 a.m. I'm sure I'll reach an endgame.

My wife & I have a nice cohort of friends without kids, but a lot of them go to bed early and don't drink, even those in their 30s and late 20s. We don't drink much either these days, I certainly never have the desire to have more than 2. But we were out until 1 last night (her company party and a nightcap at the cocktail lounge in our neighborhood that's too busy to go to before 10),and the night before (jazz show and a late dinner).

One 40+ year old friend had a good run of keeping us up late while he was unemployed, but is now an elementary school librarian who gets up at 5:30 am, so not so much anymore.

I gave up drinking in 2002 and for the last ten years I've been working a job that means I have to get up at 5am, so absolutely zero partying for me.

I still get out a fair amount

I think growing up in Manhattan fostered a sense of transit-dread. We had a lot more freedom than most teenagers because of the transit system- especially at night. When the city was empty, it was mine. But I was through with partying by the time i was old enough to drink legally because the prospect of finding my way home on the barely functioning subway system after 2am made it so unappealing. It wore you down very fast.

I'd party in my early 20's if the boy who twisted my arm was cute enough, but I couldn't really enjoy it due to the subway fatigue. By my late 20's staying out late basically limited to playing in bands, especially warehouse parties like Rubulad where you'd go on at 3am and then have to load out through a wasted crowd and somehow find a ride home.
Now i work 11pm-7am shifts a few nights a week. I'm always shattered but being free in the afternoons wheb most people are at work suits me fine.

Those days are long gone for me - sometimes I miss them.

I still get out a fair amount and enter my 60s in the second half of this year. Does partying necessarily have to involve drinking/getting high though? I prefer meeting friends for meals these days.

i *really* miss mornings. i was very young, possibly in high school, the last time i got out of bed at a "normal" hour every day. i had a job that started at 5:30 or 6am every day, so i'd be doing disco naps and going to bed super early, walking to work before dawn. i didn't really get to experience "mornings" because i'd already be tethered to my cubicle, and now i only experience them as "still not asleep".

once in a blue moon i get up in the morning and it's amazing.

Yeah, I go out far less, and have come to quite value a couple hours well-spent with friends. Rarely go to shows anymore but will see films almost weekly, as it’s more of a defined time commitment.

I still stay up late on weekends either painting minis or playing games or reading. Cut way back on drinking to only a couple nights a week.

Kingfish OTM - evening movie-going holds a lot more appeal now.

When I hang out with the few people I’m close to anymore who I partied hard with (in some cases decades ago), it’s astonishing how rarely we drink. A lot of time a lemonade is as adventurous as we get

Does partying necessarily have to involve drinking/getting high though? I prefer meeting friends for meals these days.

― Dr Drudge (Bob Six), Sunday, January 28, 2024 1:26 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago

Not at all. I was mostly curious about poster social habits.

at the Suicidal Tendencies show, I drank more than I have been lately, simply cos I was hanging w/ a cousin I hadn't seen in 20 years. wasn't like....terribly intoxicated, but probably woulda blown slightly over the limit.

at one point I started doing swivel spins on my knees on the concrete floor, and I was kinda like "this was easier when I was 20", but it was kind of fun to revisit that happy go lucky time from decades ago. couldn't do them for long though. and lol had a gout flare-up the next day (meh)

I also endorse the "a few drinks + a little weed" mix — that's actually been my favorite combo for decades.

I so rarely have actual hangovers anymore that when I do I deeply resent them.

Almost 50 and generally leaning into early nights and wholesome habits- but playing gigs often leads to 2 or 3am nights - the next day I feel it! On these mornings after I have found that doing heaps of stuff rather than wallowing in pity gets me through (in fact this could be described as my life MO generally).

There’s not much nightlife in northwest Montana. Joshua Redman’s coming through in late February, though, and if I go that’ll be my first live music experience in four years. As far as “partying,” I gave up alcohol on doctor’s orders 20 years ago and was never really a drug person. I’m usually in bed around 10:30 and up by 6:30, 7:30 at the latest.

(emphasis added)

Joshua Redman’s coming through in late February, though, and if I go that’ll be my first live music experience in four years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCPzLZ59dos

For those who go to shows somewhat regularly, do you usually drink at shows?

I'm down to several shows a year but i have never liked drinking during them for reasons

1. too cheap/too broke, maybe the biggest reason
2. started seeing live music regularly when i was underage and on some level still resent the music being packaged with "nightlife" / prefer the vibe of various kinds of all ages venues that don't have rancid beer on the floor.
3. don't want to lose my spot to go to the bar
4. generally my interest in drinking at shows grows in inverse proportion to my enthusiasm for the music and i never go to anything as a tag-along anymore.

i feel like you gotta be wasted for suicidal tendencies, though

I didn't used to, for many of the reasons above. Then, I'd usually not have a good time because my anxiety would always overtake me being in a crowd, and I'd always burn out halfway through.

Alkey started helping me quiet my nerves and often delayed me burning out at shows, somewhat paradoxically given that alcohol is a depressant.

But it does make concert going way more expensive. And I don't get drunk anymore for reasons I've shared elsewhere, other than me slipping a little at ST

I rarely go to shows, and when I do we usually tailgate at whichever friend lives closest to the venue. I'll have a beer.

When I go to Pitchfork Festival it's different: the only time I'll drink three or four beers, an effort for me, especially if you see what I look like.

Also weirdly I feel like having something in my hands like a cup, even if empty, is weirdly calming to me, because I never know what to do with my hands at shows.

Sometimes I'll just hold an empty drink lol

yeah, tailgating is how i did it in high school (more often getting really stoned en route to the venue than drinking)

i can understand the anxiety thing (i also don't love crowds) but having to hold a drink or an empty cup is def on my cons list

also this is hard to put my finger on more precisely but feel the shows i've been to with a lot of beer drinking (it's always beer) have had an overwhelmingly masculine, bro-ey energy.

hey, I drink beer when gin and tonic isn't available!

When I was 18-19 I used to go to a lot of shows at the Ritz, a club inside what had once been Studio 54. I'd get off the train at Penn Station (33rd Street) and walk the 20+ blocks, stopping in the middle to buy a 40 oz beer in Times Square which I would drink out of a paper bag on the final stretch to the club. This was 1990-1992. I don't think you can do any of those things (buy beer without being carded, drink it out of a paper bag in public) in Manhattan anymore.

Aged 61, I still have occasional big gay nights out, probably about once every couple of months. There’s a price to pay, but I’m happy to pay it. These range from 3am to 8am, depending on city/venue, but fuelled by nothing stronger than vodka, Red Bull, nicotine, sertraline and cialis. Clean living, me.

I've quit partying almost completely, though the only partying I ever did was drinking. My family has a history of white noise level alcoholism, not the type that could be turned into an after-school special but more just it's always there with every meal. It's not even something I really noticed until I would visit family and just be aware of how much was being consumed. My older relatives get a bit more pickled in alcohol with age, if anyone has seen the Christmas episode of The Bear, it felt like a more extreme version of some family dinners I've had. People get a bit slurry and hazy and you can't pin them down and they get a little ornery. It's one reason I'm considering abandoning drinking completely after age 50, just to not have it be part of my family anymore.

I'm definitely not having many late nights as a result, but there are lots of fun dinners at restaurants and happy hours where I have one glass of wine and just enjoy the company. When I hit age 40, I had too many drinks and blacked out after a certain point in the night and that was probably the last time I ever have and ever will drink to the point of getting drunk.

Sipping a martini at a late afternoon bar by myself with a book or before friends arrive is the golden hour.

― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 29, 2024 3:37 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’ve done this a few times, it was actually kind of relaxing.

One of the surest ways to read at a good clip, Ray. I recommend it.

I did that yesterday (whiskey, not a martini, but still)

In regard to actual parties, I find that past 40 people have a lot fewer of them. Invites to friends' houses are much more for dinner or maybe a games night, not a backyard kegger. BUT, I've also found that if you go to the trouble to have a big ol' bash, people respond and appreciate it — not least because of its relative rarity in our age bracket. When my wife turned 40 in '22, we rented a small local venue and had a big damn party where everybody got pretty well lit (the margaritas on tap helped) and danced til 1 or 2. This past year we had a proper Halloween party at our house, with costumes appreciated but not required, and I was surprised by how many people went all-out in dressing up and throwing down. Wrapped up well after midnight with people still hanging out. So it is doable.

main reason I don't like to drink beer as much anymore isn't hangovers, etc, it's my stomach really reacts much worse to them now than it does hard liquor. whiskey sits ok in my stomach otoh

Last year I attended my first proper Halloween party since before 2020 and it was a ba'l -- and I don't like Halloween.

I get out decently often for music and friends, but I would not classify it as "partying."

Personally I cannot really dance and wish to drink sparingly, but I like people and I like fun and I like being with fun people who are having fun.

One challenge for me is that I wish to drink only sparingly (as noted), but in order to make music in the way that I do, I will necessarily spend several hours in a bar several times a week, surrounded by my best friends. It takes some judgment and discipline. Which I am notoriously bad at.

I should have an enormous party when I turn 40, right? I can’t decide between “enormous party” and “go away for a week”

I've been to one party post-pandemic, but these days meeting up with friends is usually an afternoon meetup at a good restaurant somewhere. Even so, get togethers are pretty rare - a lot of folks have left Southern California in the last several years. Maybe once or twice a year someone will pass through town and we'll meet up. It's been at least five years since I drank something stronger than a beer.

fwiw (and everybody's different obv) my wife debated for most of the six months leading up to her 40th whether to have a party. She liked the idea of a big fun thing with lots of friends but felt weird making a whole celebration just for herself. I was like, "people have birthday parties, it's a thing, it's allowed." Anyway, it was a blast, she made a playlist for the whole evening of songs that meant one thing or another to her, we had delicious Mexican cake, just really fun and she was glad we did it. (otoh going away for a week is also always good.)

do both!!

I was sick when I turned 40 so no party but I am 100% having a dance party for my 50th.

I go out maybe 2 times a month so nowhere near where I used to but it's fine. I would like to go out more but it doesn't happen. Either nobody wants to go or they cancel. I desperately wanted to go to a roller disco for my last birthday but nobody 2wanted to except my gen z coworkers so I'm going with them. I can only do one thing a day now though so if I know I'm going out that's it - I need all day to rest/prepare. Had dinner with some people recently who had come from another meetup and that blew my mind. I need a day to prepare and a day to recover lol.

I so would've gone with you.

♥️

Didn't do anything for my 40th but had a big party for my 50th. I didn't like - have never liked - an event all about me but good to call friends together (since we don't see each other as much), good to give them a good time, and just fun to push it once more. It came off! Stayed up till the morning, seemed like everyone had a a kind of unexpected blast of noisy dancing-and-drinking fun.

In general go out dancing or to a party about once a month, maybe a few drinks out with friends once or twice a month. For the heavy nights recovery times are longer than they used to be and the depths are worse, just brutal physical/metaphysical sludge, like a couple of days of mysterious aches, no brain activity and the fear. Still, worth it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx83fPqCw5Q

I would definitely recommend 50th party. I had a visceral feeling of time running down as the birthday approached and realised odds were I wouldn't see some of the guests that many more times.

xp hah actually yes, managed to catch that exact flavour of the fear along with my first taste of insomnia in the week following the party but I should keep that for the ilxors in their 50s thread.

If I didn't go out, I think I'd be extremely lonely and wouldn't really speak to many people. I enjoy my introspective quiet times, usually after work, but I need to interact in a social setting at least once at the weekend - it's part of my lifeblood.

If I had a family it might be different of course.

I'm also a strong advocate of the idea that humans need a holiday from their brains once in at least a wee while (it's why we dream at night), so getting drunk/high and getting to inhabit a different mindset can be therapeutic so long as it doesn't become a dependent habit.

Luckily I live in a city that caters to many ages and tastes, but nevertheless I still get the occaisoanl realisation I'm among the oldest people in the room - NYE this year especially, but that was a big orrible D'n'B night and not my usual thing

otm, dl

Those first months of the pandemic damaged me in ways I didn't understand until a year later. I realized I needed to see people.

xpost If you had a family you'd go out more, lol.

(I kid)

My 30th was epic. 30 bands over 10 hours on two stages doing alternating sets. Impossible to top.

My 40th was great, just a house party with a big invite list and I cooked for everyone. My music friends surprised me with a set of songs:

Katie from Austra sang Tori Amos“Blood Roses”
Liz from Picastro sang Hank’s “Exclusive Plot”
Johnny Spence sang Mantler’s “Author”
Katie from The Organ sang Sarah McLachlan “Possession”
Thom Gill sang something amazing, a Jane Siberry song I think

I sat there bawling, like uncontrollably. It was really magic but also really hard. My last attempt had been scarcely three months prior. It was really nice to have my friends support me like they did

I insisted I didnt want to acknowledge my 40th in any way but my wife organized a surprise party in our backyard and as usual she was right, it truly moved me and is a very special memory now. The only downside was that I was so overwhelmed and shellshocked by the surprise crowd that for the first 30 minutes or so I needed to kind of sit alone on the outskirts and collect myself, which felt rude but I think everyone understood. Like other posters I have a healthy aversion to any me-focused event but despite that I strongly recommend not ignoring milestone birthdays. I didnt do anything for 30 and regretted it, 40 was a nice corrective.

ok I'm gonna have a blowout for my 60th, you are all invited in 2026

I'm there.

This is a really touching thread. Gets to the heart of something profound about getting old(er) and seeing others struggling with the same stuff is heartening. Even if that's just a simple no one really told me what it was going to be like.

Also if 'metaphysical sludge' isn't a genre on RYM, it needs to be.

I was so overwhelmed and shellshocked by the surprise crowd that for the first 30 minutes or so I needed to kind of sit alone on the outskirts and collect myself

The only time I ever organized a real surprise party was for an ex, who had several times wistfully said that she had never had a surprise party. She did end up loving it, but her initial reaction was very much the same. She was SO surprised that it took a while for her to adjust to it.

We can forget that actual surprise is not always a positive experience.

We had a surprise party for my best friend, who is a leap year baby, and only celebrates every four years. This was his 32nd birthday (aka his 8th). It was a challenge to conceal the surprise because obviously he was anticipating something, anything for his rare birthday. I made up a lie about my relationship breaking down and ran with it for six weeks prior, calling my best friend for emotional support, with my boyfriend "leaving me", coincidentally, on Feb 28th, the day before the intended surprise. My friend met me at a bar on the 29th to comfort me as I cried, pretend-drunk, into a pint glass. I suggested we drop by the local venue and staggered over there with him in tow. We went upstairs and the place was dark and smoke machine was on and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" spray-painted on the wall. Fifty guests there yelling happy birthday, including my boyfriend. My friend turned around and said "wait, he didn't actually leave you?" and then "WAIT, YOU'RE NOT EVEN DRUNK??" and then he hit me, hard. Yayyyyy

wow, that's good.

lololol

wow

close thread

Also: the concept of leap year birthdays has never occurred to me until this moment

Yeah honestly the cuteness of a 39 year old saying "I'm turning 10 next year" has never worn off, it's a delightful thing

and then he hit me, hard. Yayyyyy

ROFL!!!

I’m realizing as I read the above that I haven’t celebrated ANY of these big “marker” years in any memorable ways! And until recent years I might’ve maybe been cool with it even if I wouldn’t have asked anyone to do it. Now, though? Nah. Ultimately I don’t like that much attention and am the only child of two parents who aren’t into having much attention focused on them.

But, yes - it would be nice to have lots of great people in one place and that’s really hard to accomplish beyond a certain age range, unless you’re lucky.

man, you people with the humility. I WANT my birthday celebrated -- I want my dearest friends loving me and buying me dinner and drinks! I may die the day after my birthday, so I want them remembering me during the most euphoric of circumstances.

Alfred, I’d love to be at one of your blowouts! I’m just a somewhat introverted wallflower.

lol they're not really blowouts: usually about a dozen people. I organize them, though, and if you're in South Florida you get the first call.

This is borderline "bump thread every time you party..." but last night me and Ms. T got really high and went to see Madonna at Madison Square Garden last night. Had a really great time, highly recommend, no booze involved.

I keep forgetting Ih ave tix to see her in April w/ my mom. good show?

i imagine great show if youw ere high lol

Awwww

x-post
For all the noise about late start times, once the show starts it's a non-stop barrage of hits with *just* enough vulnerable ridiculousness/ridiculous vulnerability. Staging was great - not a bad seat in the house.

How'd she sound?

that's all I'm looking for really. i was into Madonna big time as a kid and it never really ended as an adult

I thought she sounded great... There's complete shows on YT if you want details/spoilers, but I can't imagine how a 2024 Madonna show could be better - maybe toss out one of the interstitials for "Deeper And Deeper" but I'm not complaining when "Don't Tell Me" and "Rain" are in.

!!

damn looked at the setlist and I am excite now