GOING OUT

6/10/2021

As kids, we saw our friends all the time. But as adults we tend to see them during concentrated bursts of partying and drinking crammed into the weekend.

This ritual is probably less fun than we pretend it is. But what choice do young adults have? Work is time-consuming, and it occupies the majority of one’s waking hours, so the path of least resistance is jamming your social life into Friday and Saturday.

Yet even if you think the Friday/Saturday model of socializing is understandable, it’s not immediately obvious why it requires so much alcohol.  Social drinking is fun, but the borderline bingeing some people engage in is a clue that something more is going on.

It's not just that alcohol is an addictive substance. I know people who don't drink regularly during the week but then go wild when they're out.

I think what's happening is a subconscious attempt at a shortcut. One notable effect of alcohol is the removal of inhibition. Low-inhibition interactions are a hallmark of intimacy, but intimacy requires lots of quality time spent with others. Life is busy, so why not drink as a shortcut to the feeling of being close to someone?

What makes this so frightening is that many high-achieving people resort to the Friday/Saturday model, not because they’re secretly degenerate party animals, but because they’re so high-achieving. 

Imagine a talented 24 year-old who went to a good college and now works in management consulting. She works long hours and rarely has much time to see her friends. But here’s the thing about talented 24 year-olds with good educations and solid careers—they tend to have a lot going for them and are reasonably well-socialized, so they have lots of social demands on top of professional ones.

High-achievers have managed to accomplish a lot throughout their young lives, juggling school and extracurriculars, so why not balance a demanding career and a full social life too? 

But school trains us to balance responsibilities using shortcuts. That’s why SparkNotes is so popular. Alcohol is the equivalent of reading sparknotes for building intimacy, and going out is the equivalent of reading sparknotes for having a personal life.

But the problem with shortcuts is there are some things you can't fake, and having an actual life is one of them.

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