The Pressures of “Nights Out” for a Young Person
And why we are expected to love clubbing
When somebody turns the legal age to drink, whether that is 21 in the US, 18 in the UK, or other ages scattered across the globe, most cultures feature a nightlife-driven period of your life. This is the time where a person is expected to go to clubs, get wasted, try and find a partner for the night, and have a great time. But, again I may sound like an OAP, this concept of going out and drinking every Saturday night has never really appealed to me, until recently. So, what has changed: is it finally seeing the light? Is it the pressures getting to me at last? Is it the idea that time is finite and I should enjoy these fleeting moments of my youth? I guess you could say it’s a mixture.
Ever since I turned 18, I have been on plenty of nights out, hampered by COVID for 2 years, but a fair share none the less. I’ve been to plenty of clubs, with a variance of people and in an array of locations. I come to realise quickly that, like my parents before me, it doesn’t take much for me to get drunk. In fact, it soon dawned on me that after a while, my body told me if I drank any more, it would be rejected, meaning a lot of times I wasn’t even drunk before I had to stop for my health. This led to many nights out where I left early, due to feeling sober amongst a rabble of disorderly peers and the inability to talk to girls in clubs. My friends used to question me about it, as they tended to stay out until the first train at 6am the next day, but I don’t think they realised until they have now reached young adulthood. And this is one of my first pressures to examine for a person such as myself, the social pressures.
One of the most common forms of pressure we face in these forms of situations is from our closest friends. The idea that we should have one more drink, stay for one more song, try it “because everything else is taking/smoking it”. I’ve faced many an enquiry revolving around herd mentality, and for the most part I’m proud about my ability to avoid getting trapped in this concept. Now, it is not like it is malicious intent on behalf of our friends and drinking buddies (for the majority, anyway), but rather making sure everybody feels included. But, it can sometimes come across as rather manipulative or cold in the wrong hands, or when it goes too far. I can admit I have had arguments over this issue before, where a close friend would shun me for not having the same tolerances or the same tastes as them. Overall, though, it is more the idea of FOMO which they are seeking to avoid.
FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out, was a term coined in the early 2000's, to explain the phenomenon of the feeling we have when we are scared a social event will be one to remember, and we do not want to miss it. This term is now used loosely by marketing companies to sell their pizzas, or highlight their limited-time deals, but its original purpose is still as valid as ever. Clubbing has an added value to it, because it is not just a fear of missing out in the moment, but the future as well. To explain, like I said in a previous article, my mindset is it is one less time we will do something before we die, so missing a clubbing night means we have one less before we eventually die. You also have the FOMO factor for inside jokes that may arise due to events on the night. So, there are pressures from our friends and pressures from within ourselves, but what else creates this idea that clubbing is the best?
Surely you have to look at the representation in our popular media, be it TV Shows or Movies. There is this idea that parties and clubbing are all the rage, particularly parties (but I will try and focus on the clubbing side for our purposes). Now, it could be said that a lot of times clubs are depicted poorly, as usually it is in a comedy and some hjinks and scenarios arise stemming from the club. In most cases, however, it is booming music, everybody dancing, getting drunk and having fun, and this plants a seed in our mind that it is like this. It never shows clubs being so full you cannot move, waiting at a bar for 20 minutes to get an overpriced drink (which gets knocked and goes all over the floor), the bathrooms being an absolute state, or losing your friends within 5 minutes. The only aspect which you could say that is represented properly is the dangerous nature of drugs in a club, specifically date-rape drugs. Mainly, however, it is shown to be a positive experience.
Maybe it is just me, and my lack of a strong drinking stomach, which hampers my experiences. It could also be my bad experiences in the past, whether it was drama caused amongst my friends, or from drunken strangers looking for a rise out of somebody. Either in a relationship or out of one, I could never really enjoy myself — in a relationship, I was too busy making sure she was okay and balancing that with being with my friends, whereas single me hates the lonely feeling you have when sober in a nightclub, especially amongst my friends who now have girlfriends/fiances with them. After saying all this, though, I am starting to get more and more inclined to go out frequently, maybe due to FOMO or finally realising it is what I make it, and to not let the little things bug me. The social pressures no longer apply to me, and I have finally grown to a point where I feel comfortable enough to be out and not care what people think of me. Maybe.
