I cannot find it again but a study found that a surprisingly lot of Americans just dont like going out. They prefer to just stay home and do things like internet, watch tv, read, do hobbies, etc… Heck anymore even when people are out you see many of them on their phones.
I think I’m among them. I definitely dont like bars or clubs. Going to events is ok. As for parties, I can think of only a few I’ve been to where I wasnt looking at the clock and wanting to leave. Honestly as my time has gotten more precious, I just dont find going out is worth the trouble.
And I have a family so going out, I have to keep an eye on my kids and judge the event on whether they will enjoy it also.
However I hate to seem unsociable.
So I’d like to ask, do you enjoy going out and if so, where?
I almost always accept invitations with some reluctance. “Going out” requires a break from the routine, which I’m averse to straying from. But nine times out of ten, I have at least an “OK” time when I go to a party. I always have to remind myself this when I look for excuses to say no.
I like doing things. I love eating out, going to the movies, visiting a cool museum, etc. But I don’t like clubs or just “hanging out” at someone’s house. I don’t mind socializing, but I don’t want it to be the centerpiece of the activity. I want to do something besides talking.
I think nowadays it is very easy to keep oneself pre-occupied. I was watching an episode of the Honeymooners last night, and Norton mentioned wanting to go to the pool hall. That was their version of X-box back then.
I enjoy socializing with a friend or two and explore new places with them. We go out earlier or on off days, like Monday afternoon /evening. Avoid stupid crowds and suburbanites that way. Last night, went to a nice hipster bar and then for a Mexican meal after, both new to us and a different neighborhood than our usual stomping grounds.
I’ve always hated going out (and by ‘going out’, I mainly mean the club scene) with a passion. Shitty music, overcrowded sweaty dance floors, overpriced drinks, queues for everything, shitty music, douchebags with bad attitudes, crass obnoxious drunks, shitty, shitty music, toilets covered in piss and broken glass, facile conversations screamed into each other’s ears…oh, and did I mention the shitty music?
Ever since I was sixteen my idea of a good night out was dinner followed by conversation over a few drinks in a decent pub. Unfortunately, I was the only one of my friends who ever felt that way. I spent years, and, cumulatively, tens of thousands of pounds pissing away my time in awful night clubs just because my friends (who, in retrospect, probably hated it as much as I did) insisted that’s what we do. It doesn’t help that my friends and I have wildly different tastes in music. I like rock (classic, punk, and alternative), soul, Motown, jazz…y’know, real music. My friends like commercial house, UK garage, R&B (and not the good R&B like Sam Cooke or Bill Withers; the piss poor overproduced auto-tuned plastic soul-curdling drivel that passes for R&B today), and dubstep…y’know, noise.
Now I’m in my 30s, there are few things that give me greater pleasure than finding a good excuse not to go out.
Type 1) There are friends that I like to spend time with, fun things to do, and interesting events to go see. And quite a few of those things just aren’t doable in my apartment. For those things, I like going out.
Type 2) Sometimes there’s bad music that’s too loud to hold a conversation, or events that don’t live up to expectation, or people that I just don’t hit it off with. For things like that, I’d just as soon stayed home.
But when I’m choosing to go out, it’s not like I always know in advance which type it will turn out to be. I have room for more Type 1 events in my life. In order to find them, I’m willing to risk some Type 2s.
I like to visit friends and schmooze. I enjoy going to concerts and restaurants with my wife. I enjoy going to visit our kids, all of whom live at least 300 miles away.
My Wife and I live 20 highway miles from the nearest decent restaurant. I like to cook. We don’t go out after getting home after work unless it’s to walk the dogs, sit on the deck, plow snow, and such.
I enjoy travel, for the most part, but it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to fly. If it’s under 800 miles, we will drive. It’s just as darn quick as the airport is 2 hours away. Add two hours for security, parking, and if things go pear shaped, and it just makes sense to drive. Your day is pretty much done either way.
Now that I’m a little older, I have a better handle on what I enjoy relative to college. So I can say that I really do enjoy spending a spring or fall afternoon at a local beer joint/beer garden hanging out on the back porch chatting and having a few beers. I also enjoy trying different restaurants. I even enjoy (to a lesser extent) things like performing arts.
I don’t much enjoy really loud, really crowded bars/clubs packed with 20-somethings. I never really did when I was younger either, but when that’s what your friends are doing, and you’re all a little liquored up and you’re looking to score, it’s probably the best of the options available to you.
The thing that probably annoys me the most is that some of the places that are eminently pleasant from about 12 pm - 6 pm become annoying as hell after that, because the “going-out” crowd shows up, the lights dim, the music goes up in volume and the place gets crowded.
Same here. For example, I had accepted an invitation to go to a karaoke bar with some friends Friday night. As the day approached, I really wasn’t into it not to mention that I can’t sing a note on key and I’m incredibly self-conscious about it.
Almost cancelled, but so many other people cancelled that I felt I had to go. And I was the first of my friends to arrive and I came close to walking out. And everyone was singing recent pop stuff that I had never heard of. And all these people could sing on key. And there was some kind of app that let everyone in the bar rate the performances.
But then we got going, and I picked fun songs and just belted them ( yelled the lyrics basically )with a lot of gestures and emoting. And people I didn’t even know we’re digging it, big time, and I got really great scores. I had the best time I’ve had in a long time and I will go back again soon- even if I go alone.
And pretty much the same thing happened when I went to my high school reunion, thought I was going to be bored ( since no one I really knew was going) but I had a really great time and made lots of new friends. I always end up having fun when I go out so I’ve learned just to ignore the “why am I doing this, I’m going to hate it, I don’t wanna go” thoughts that fill my head as I get ready.
Absolutely. I live in very busy area of Chicago and I live here specifically because of the restaurants, bars, culture, and festivals. Outside of being sick or working insane hours, I’m out at least a couple nights every week of the year, regardless of weather.
What do you mean by “going out”? I can’t abide noisy dance clubs and bars, and am not too fond of noisy large parties, but a nice quiet pub or restaurant and conversation with a few friends is nice now and again.
I do all my “eating out” when I’m traveling and staying in hotels. Then, I prefer to find a tolerable place to eat, and then eat there every day of my stay. I enjoy being a “regular”, and treated as one by the staff.
When not traveling, I never eat out. I haven’t been in a place that serves drinks in decades. Once in a while, I used to grab a burger for lunch if out shopping but i don’t even do that anymore. Instead I buy a pint of ice cream and eat it for lunch, on the lawn, before I walk home.
assuming by “going out” you mean going to clubs, parties, bars, etc. then no, I never have. I don’t like being in an unfamiliar, noisy place crammed in with a bunch of people I don’t know.
Really since high school, “going out” became something of an event we would try to have every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. “We” being various circles of friends over the years.
I can’t really say that I hate certain types of places uniformly as even the douchiest clubs could be fun under the right circumstances with the right friends. But as a general rule, I tend to not enjoy going out if:
-The place is so packed I can’t move or get to the bar
-The activity is something I find boring and we spend way too much time there
-There are too many jerks
-I get stuck there longer than I want to be there (particularly if I’m driving people)
-It’s a crowd that mostly knows each other and is indifferent to outsiders
