Was home by 10:30 on NYE. I think I don't have the party bug in me anymore

I am a bit of a holiday party-pooper because of a lot of reasons. For one thing I feel like certain holidays are something we are obliged to participate in because of tradition, not because we actually want to do it. Also, the bars are far more crowded and crazy on days like New Years Eve, and many of the places jack up their prices on this day, which is terrible.

Yesterday was a strange day for me because I woke up before 4 am and I have a new policy in my household that I stay up the firs time I wake up in a morning. There are certain disqualifiers such as if I wake up at 1:30AM because I need to use the bathroom. I'm talking about the uselessness of rolling around in bed when your body has clearly had enough rest and no longer needs anymore. For me, I tend to stay in bed anyway and eventually I fall back asleep. Normally though, this is not high quality sleep and it doesn't seem to benefit me in any way. Therefore I get up when I wake up. Well yesterday I woke up at around 4 AM and I knew this was going to be problematic because I don't normally party until late but was invited to several New Years Eve parties and said I would go.

You may recall my recent post about being a man of my word so since I said I would go, I was going to go no matter what.

To say that I didn't have a great time last night would be an understatement. For the most part in all 3 of the places that I went to I was basically planning my exit as soon as I got there.

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There are a lot of reasons why my attempt at being part of the party last night was always going to fail and me having woken up at farmer-o'clock was just one of them. For one thing, I know that I am not going to stay until midnight before I even leave the house because I am very aware that my sensitive princess puppy dog is terrified of fireworks so I have to be home before midnight in order to comfort her.

As she gets older and becomes seriously set in her ways she experiences tremendous separation anxiety when I am not around and when something frightens her, this is made even worse. Fireworks are one of her greatest fears and I will not let her suffer that alone. Combine this with the fact that I genuinely do NOT like being out late and we have a bad start to the game-plan already.

So At about 8 I went to my local pub with Nadi in the hopes that I could at least say hi to a few of the people that are regulars there that I know and like and unfortunately when I turned up the place was already packed. It was too packed for me to put her on the floor to run around and say hi and there were no chairs for me to put her down on. Eventually I found a chair and put her on it but the huge amount of people that were there made me feel uneasy, made it difficult to get a drink, and the bar owner had made the music louder for this occasion. I didn't like this change at all and didn't feel like it was necessary but hell, I don't own the place. I was out of there by 8:45, took Nadi home and then carried on to the next spot.

At the next place there is a 90's hard rock band that was meant to start at 9pm, but when we got there there was almost nobody in the place so the band decided to start at 10 instead. This irritated me but I understand where they are coming from. They don't want to play for an empty room and I didn't expect them to.

When they did finally start playing at 10pm it was louder than usual, which was expected with a live music venue, and all the people at my table could no longer communicate with one another without shouting. I hate this sort of environment and have only myself to blame because of course live music is going to be loud. I lasted about 30 minutes after trying in vain to speak to people and just told the guy I went there with that it's too loud, I'm too tired, sorry, but I'm outta here.

Then I just went home and got Nadi and honestly, that's when I figured out that this was the real party that I wanted anyway. We ordered a pizza and then sat outside at one of the tables and waited for the delivery to arrive.

_{she's always ready to go to sleep}

I think I have come the point of acceptance when I state that I am now at an age where I just don't really like to party in the traditional sense anymore. I used to seek out really loud clubs when I was in my 20's and even my early 30's, but now I just get irritable when I am somewhere that they have the music or sport commentary on some sort of blasting level. I don't understand why places do that but also, I will acknowledge that other people seem to enjoy this and perhaps I am the problem. But that is just fine with me if that is the case, I am comfortable in my own skin and I can find quiet places if I need to.

I make no New Year resolutions because I think they are stupid but I will say that I had a new year "revelation" and that is that I am not going to endure loud places anymore. If I am not having a good time there is no point in trying to stick around and places that are so loud that I cannot communicate with the people around me are never going to be a place that I enjoy. So for 2025 it is my promise that I will leave any bar that is too loud. This will be an easy promise to keep.

Hope all of you had a better New Year party than I did! Now I am at home with my dog and that is exactly where I want to be