A Night At The Lake Effect

Am I too old to be going to bars?

I closed the bar down last night, then woke up three hours later than I normally do. My headache has reduced itself from a full roar to a dull hum.

This morning, like every other morning after going out, I asked myself the question: Was it worth it? More times than not, it wasn’t. I’ve come to value authentic social experiences containing at least a hint of depth. Bars with dance floors are not the place for that. I can’t hear myself speak, no one’s sober, and I only remember half of what was said. Last night, the music was so loud that I lost count of how many times I said “Can you say that again?”

There's this phrase I heard constantly in my twenties: 'I don't want to be 30 and still going to bars.' I said it myself, dozens of times. We saw those people as irresponsible and purposeless—people who hadn’t grown up. I’d never imagined myself being someone who hadn’t “grown up” by my thirties. This makes nights like last night even harder for me to justify to myself. They make me question whether or not I’ve “grown up”.

But what does “grown up” look like exactly? It means having responsibilities, and tending to them. Especially in today’s culture of optimization and getting ahead, there’s limited room or time to be irresponsible. If you’re not grinding your way to the top, someone else is.

So, if going out makes me feel irresponsible and somewhat inauthentic, why do I keep going out? Firstly, because you can take the Bar Star out of the Bar Capital of The World (Chicago), but you can’t keep the Bar Star out of Bars forever. Secondly, and more seriously, because I occasionally need to let myself be irresponsible.

In this case, being irresponsible was worth it.

My friends and I sat next to Dom, a jacked 25-year-old visiting from New Jersey. He and his medical sales colleagues invited us upstairs, where the dance floor is, and told us to get on his tab. We tried to turn him down, but it was too late. He handed us a round of Miller Lites and said “don’t get too crazy”. Shortly after finishing that beer, I introduced myself to two women who had just graduated from nursing school. They introduced me to their other friend and her mom. Over the next two hours, the eleven of us got to know each other by way of mediocre dancing and short, intimate, and loud conversations.

The nurse’s mom, who is 55 years old, 6 feet tall, and originally from the Netherlands, wouldn’t tell me her name because “it’s too complicated and Dutch”. I gave her a short dance lesson, teaching her to use her hands less and her feet more, and she ate it up. She was a top contender for the person that had the most fun.

Fifty-five. A mother. And having the most fun. She’s figured out that it's okay to be purposeless for periods of time. Her and I have found one way to do that: going out with our friends and family to dance the night away at a bar. The confidence that I felt in those moments—the freeness with which I danced, and having no purpose beyond the moment—opened me up to a way of being that is difficult for me to access.

It doesn’t just have to be at bars. For me, it happens when I’m around my siblings, too. Over Christmas, we got together and blind taste-tested 8 different sodas. It was “purposeless”, yet fulfilling, the same way going out dancing last night was. Accessing these states of being are worth more than my thirty-day Headspace streak. More than my last four therapy sessions combined. And, currently, more than today’s hangover.

As I reflect on last night, I wonder if being a proper “grown up” requires finding ways to experience this purposeless joy. In those moments, we tap into a different side of our humanity. A side that being endlessly mission-driven doesn’t allow us to access. What I previously viewed as immature may be one of the most human things we can do.

I have no interest in returning to the Bar Star ways of my mid-20s. My life is much fuller now than it ever has been, and drinking takes away from it. But last night reminded me that great things can happen when you aren’t forcing yourself to be a grown up. At 31, I’m going to make space for a few nights per year just like it.