I don’t like the dark but it doesn’t have that huge an effect on my life. If I need to go out and do something in the evening, I’ll do it. But it’s not like my husband and I go clubbing or whooping it up anyway. We have always had supper between 5 & 6, then we watch the news, the reruns of Colbert and the Daily Show, and maybe something on Netflix. Sometimes we’ll even run to the local Dairy Queen for a treat! Yeah, we’re wild ones.
Frankly, precipitation is more likely to keep me from going out and about than dark or cold. Unless it’s extreme cold. I’m a delicate flower after all…
My problem with dark, cold nights is really that the “precipitation” doesn’t politely leave once the weather event is over. Instead it hangs around, invites its friends, and makes both my driveway and all the roads narrower and when there’s enough of it it’s a visual blockage too, especially at the intersections of roads and in parking lots. And if there’s by some chance enough warming during the day to melt some of that precipitation it will freeze where it is after dark, usually on the road.
Me too. It bothers me less to have it be dark by the time I get home in the evening, than to have to leave the house in the morning when it’s dark.
We normally leave the house between 7:00 and 7:10am, and get home around 5:30pm. So before we returned to standard time, it was already starting to be dark when we left the house. Now it’s light when we leave, and dark when we get home. Not having summer daylight sucks, but at least what daylight we have is at the right time.
As far as getting out in the evening, I find the cold more of an impediment than the dark. Who wants to leave the house when it’s 25° F. outside? If I have to swing by the store on the way home, I’ll do that, but once I’m inside, that’s where I want to stay when the temperatures drop below freezing.
I don’t think we change. We live pretty rural, so once we get home, we are home.
I hate it all the same. I work 7 - 3:30. It’s dark when we get up no matter what time of year it is. Couldn’t care less if I have light in the morning. I’m at work. But I do have to plow, and will walk the dogs when I get home. I much prefer to do that when there is more light.
I have mandatory rehearsals on some nights of the week, so I don’t really have a choice. Plus, I like to go to concerts, and those typically happen later on in the evening when it’s dark out.
I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum from Aceplace- I welcome the end of Daylight Saving Time, as it means I’m no longer an hour behind the rest of the time zone. You may have 300 million people declaring that it’s seven o’clock when it’s only six; I have a thermonuclear fusion reactor and the planet Earth itself.
And yes, it does get dark (to your perception) earlier, and the period of darkness lasts longer. But we’ve got this handy dandy thing called electricity now…
Really…
I mean I really (sincerely) don’t get this thread.
I’m quite good at turning on lightbulbs. At home and in the car. And everywhere I go has them already on.
Granted, I don’t see as well at night as I use to.
I grew up in the country. On a ‘clear’ night, I’d turn off the headlights and drive quite fast because I could see better because I could see everywhere, not just where the headlights were.
Some of the headlights on new cars are really bright and that really bothers me. But I still go out.
The only thing I do different in winter is pay a bit more attention to the weather forecast - because I have to know if I need to get up early to shovel so I can get to work on time.
This year was tougher than most. DST ends and a week later we have a unseasonably cold weather front that hit the entire US. We went from a 70 degree day to a 36 degree day in 24 hours. Hello darkness, hello the cold. Really does a number on my head. The winter blues are never fun.
The sun and warmth will return. Just have to hang on until March and then the count down to Spring begins.
Not this month it isn’t. We had snow last week. A extremely rare event in November for us. We’re getting late December weather a full month early. The big concern is what that means for Jan and Feb. This could be a record breaking winter.
Good grief, buy a hat and a warm coat and cheer up. You can add a light weight polypropylene layer (pants, shirt, socks, glove liners) to wick moisture/sweat away from your skin. Being cold is one thing, being damp and cold is what makes people uncomfortable.
If you really object to being cold, you can buy rechargeable battery-powered vests, gloves, and socks that will make you overheat in the coldest weather. For approximately 4 to 6 hours, anyway.
If I didn’t go out after dark I couldn’t do much of anything in winter. Boston isn’t that far north and I leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark. My social life won’t hibernate until spring.
I absolutely thrive in the cold and dark; things were so busy around here that I was caught off guard the weekend BST ended – when I found out, I was walking around like this little guy →
The best part of my commute are the couple days a week when I take the train; it’s dark at both ends of the journey, and I have a 20 minute walk both ways to and from the uni through quiet, empty lanes and a cemetary. I go up to town (London) a couple times a year, and the winter trips are the best due to the darkness, even in the crowded streets.
I’m my most productive in the dark and the gloom; today, for example, it’s been overcast, and sort of brightened up around 11 or midday or so – but it’s just about 3pm now, and almost twilight.
21st December is both my fave and worst day of the year – fave because it’s the shortest, and worst because now the days will start to get longer again.
It’s during the summer that I tend to hibernate away from the sun and the heat; one thing I do NOT miss about the East Coast are hot, humid summers.
It does affect our going out somewhat, but not horribly. Mostly it affects our going out for after-dinner walks - those are almost impossible outside in the dark, because you can’t see the ice on the sidewalk. Even the streetlights don’t help - you really need daylight for that.
It doesn’t ruin anything, but I do choose to go out less often when it’s dark and cold. It balances out with the rest of the year when I’m more likely to go out when it’s lighter or warmer.
