Sometimes a crowd detracts from the show, especially if they’re too loud, too aggressive, too drunk, and spilling beer, for example.
In my wilder days, I loved partying-- whether at concerts, bars, clubs, or private homes. It always included drug and/or alcohol abuse. Loud music and boisterous crowds are not nearly as fun when I’m clean&sober.
Of course I’m older, too. That might have something to do with it, but I suspect that if I were still getting wasted I’d still enjoy partying.
I’m not sure what it is to “get” about partying, although some people clearly don’t.
After work or class, people like to get together with a bunch of their friends, have a few drinks, maybe throw on some music and basically cut loose. There is no one particular style of partying. It all depends on your tastes and interests. I mean I don’t like being so crowded I can’t move or get to the bar.
To me sitting at home on a Friday or Saturday night seems really boring and lame. Although I do find that as I get older, I don’t party as much. There are really two reasons for that. People in their late 30s tend to be married or have kids so they tend to be too busy.
Also, as you get older, it’really not that cool to sit around getting wasted like you did in college or your 20s.
This is me. Well, minus the last sentence, heh.
This really is an introvert/extrovert divide, MOL and it has nothing to do with being socially clueless. It’s quite possible to be a socially clueless extrovert or a socially savvy introvert.
I will quite modestly describe myself as the latter. People who think “introvert == shy or quiet or socially awkward” will argue with me when I say I’m a total introvert. I am GREAT at making small talk and chit chat, get along fantastically with a huge variety of crowds/personalities/types of people, am really friendly and open and apparently have a wicked sense of humor.
And I do not, and literally cannot, truly understand the appeal of partying at anything more than a theoretical level. That much interaction is extremely draining and stressful, even though I get along great with everyone I meet (and it’s not like I’m stressing about what to say or whatever). I will reach my limit and I will need to be alone so I can relax and get my energy back. If it’s a situation like jz78817 mentioned (where I can’t politely disengage/leave for whatever reason), it’s seriously horrible. I’ll become exhausted, miserable and irritable (and it only gets worse because I make sure I keep these hidden from the others there, which is draining, too), even if they’re great friends!
Or you could be an ambivert, like me. Sometimes I want to go to a crowded venue to dance to a favorite band. Or I throw a large shindig at my house.
And sometimes I just want to go to the ballet with a couple of people and out for a quiet dinner afterward, or go drink tea with a friend.
It varies pretty evenly between the two…in my early 20s I did “party” a lot, mostly with the booze and the occasional “party favor,” and I danced a lot (no casual sex though, because I was married). Now I just don’t do the drinking part because it kills my stomach, and I don’t get the chance to go out that often due to an insanely busy schedule. But it IS fun, it just starts to lose its appeal as you age generally.
Who said it did?
I think most of us remember when you wrote:
Yeah, but there was a second sentence, “If you don’t understand the appeal that drinking, dancing and socializing has for some people, even if it holds no appeal for you personally, there’s nothing anyone can type here to make you get it.”
If you don’t like parties, fair enough, but not everyone likes what you like, and not understanding how other people feel is pretty much the definition of social cluelessness in my view.
I disagree (and I disagree with you that that second sentence takes away the sting of what you were saying). There are a lot of things that people do that I just don’t understand, and it has little to do with cluelessness. Maybe it’s lack of imagination, but not cluelessness.
I don’t understand pathological social anxiety, for instance. Having panic attacks, feeling nauseous just at the idea of being in the presence of others, being so afraid of people that you stay locked in your bedroom. Am I socially clueless just because I don’t understand these feelings and behaviors? I don’t think I am. I think I’m just a person who’s never experienced social anxiety, so any understanding I have of it is purely intellectual rather than based on empathy.
If people are going to get slammed just for admitting they don’t understand something, then they will always remain “socially clueless”. It would be nice if those who don’t understand would try to be more empathetic and not be judgmental. But it would also be kind of refreshing if “experts” such as yourself would not be so…well…mean. 'Cuz you do nothing but entrench the prejudices about “the other side” that prevent mutual understanding.
</getting off of the soapbox>
See, and to me having such a lack of meaningful, enjoyable home life that you have to out to have a good time seems really pathetic. It’s not that I think there’s something wrong with wanting to go out, mind, just that if your home isn’t a place where you can spend a fun evening, it doesn’t strike me as being much of a home.
I completely agree with this post. Even when I was under 25, I was completely adrift at parties. I didn’t see the point. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t drink then. But even after I started to drink, it didn’t help.
Making wisecracks? You couldn’t hear anyone at these parties.
Now that I mainly go to quieter get-togethers where you can hold conversations, it’s a different story. I would’ve liked parties like that when I was younger, but the beer blasts and the like that were the norm then always seemed pretty boring and pointless to me.
My read of what MOL wrote was less that not liking partying in and of itself doesn’t make one socially clueless but that there’s a certain tendency towards writing about things in a way that makes a person look like they’re setting themselves apart. It’s like when people start threads about makeup, but with the point of view of , “how can anyone think they look good with all that warpaint on??!” or a thread about just Not Getting how anyone can watch network TV. As in, it really doesn’t make *any sense * to you? None at all?
But that’s just how I read it.
Without attributing this sentiment to msmith, my experience is that people worry that sitting at home on a Friday or Saturday night means that *they *are boring and lame.
I love partying, but I also love staying home. I like my place, everything here is exactly the way I want it. Sometimes, especially in the winter, I get the call to go out on a Saturday night and think “Nah, I’m cozy and my DVR runneth over.” Planning your weekend should revolve around what you actually feel like doing, not accumulating “cool points”.
At least some of us have not said that we don’t understand what can be appealing about drinking, dancing, or socializing. What I personally don’t get is drinking, dancing, or socializing in a place that’s uncomfortably hot, that’s filled with noxious smoke, that’s dirty and sticky with the risk of people spilling drinks on you, that’s so crowded it’s hard to move around, and, most of all, that’s so loud that it’s impossible to actually interact with people and (to me) is physically painful.
I suppose one could just put it down to a matter of musical taste, but to me there’s something physically noxious about a lot of music in clubs. It feels to me not that it’s just in a musical style I don’t like, but it’s music that is designed to cause bodily harm, due often just to its volume but also sometimes its content. Do partiers not experience it that way?
I agree that there’s a certain judgmental tone from some of the “not understanders” and I said as much in my earlier post. But taking a similar tact from the other side (and not even owning up to it) doesn’t help.
FWIW, I have no fear of spiders or snakes. In fact, I like them. But some people are terrified of them. While I don’t share that fear, I understand what it’s like to be afraid of something. Therefore, I can understand their fear without having it at all.
Sort of, yeah. And it always seems like the things people don’t “get” around here are popular with most other people, which is annoying. The feigned inability to wrap your head around why anyone would like to party or wear make up or, gasp, watch network television (faints) is the height of bullshit. I suppose it is possible to be that utterly clueless and out of touch with what other people like and why, or it can be a much bullshittier way of announcing that you don’t find [insert popular activity here] particularly engaging.
I like going out, but I’m not a fan of asscheek-to-asscheek clubs either. I’m not going to pretend I don’t get them or understand the appeal they have for other people, though. Of course I get it, it’s just not my cup of Earl Grey, is all.
Next time someone talks about something I’m not into, I’m going to pretend not to understand.
“I am now a Cubs season ticket holder.”
“Really? Please explain the appeal of this to me. I don’t get it at all, because I don’t like baseball, and I particularly do not like the Cubs.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
That’s how the conversation would go if I had it in real life. But I’ve said enough on this topic already.
That is hilarious.
I cannot possibly fathom how you can say that you’ve said enough on this topic already.
Count me as another vote for “some people on this board pretend to innocently and wide eye’dly not understand anything that isn’t intellectual or geeky or pretentious or what the hell ever”.
Let’s not all sit up in this thread and pretend we don’t know that happens on this board. “Someone explain to me how you can go on vacation without a bag of books. Seriously. I see some people go with one book, sitting out by the pool, and I just can’t fathom such a thing. Without a bag of books, I am lost. Can someone explain to me what it is like to not need a constant bag of books?”
So, I love to ‘party’. I have been going to nightclubs since I was 14-looking-like-25. From the ages of 19 to 34, I didn’t drink or smoke at all. I still went out every single Saturday night. Now, at the ripe old age of 37, I still go out every single Saturday night and some Fridays too.
It is the vibe of the club, the energy. Some posters have already described it well…when the music is perfect, the women are beautiful, the warm glow of the tequila is encompassing, the red light casts the right shadows, the deejay knows how to create a celebratory mood…it is pretty freaking awesome when it all comes together perfectly.
I’m more of a chiller than a dancer, but if the base drops just right on my jam, I will move the hips a bit. Not my style to get in the middle of the floor and shake it up, but I love to watch the people who do. Man, girls can do things with their bodies that is nothing short of acrobatic. The outfits range from stunning to WTF. The hairstyles, the make up, the couples in the cut doing the erotic two step, the old cool OG’s in the V.I.P. getting respect and love from all the folks around. The whole thing is really fun. My best friend and I travel to big cities all over the country, finding the ghetto and the grittiest reggae clubs and sometimes the fanciest hip hop clubs too. It is fascinating to go from town to town and see that there is something fundamentally the same about all party people. They share a club culture that is just nationally felt (internationally if I count Toronto) and while I’m sure there are those who don’t share the love for it, I have a hard time believing that there are those who can’t even imagine that anyone would enjoy it.
Count me as one of those who’d be asking the question sincerely, as I believe the OP did.
The appeal of the party may be obvious to you, but to those of us who dpon’t feel it, it’s an enigma.
Honestly – I’ve never felt it. It ain’t wide-eyed innocence posing.