Dear Sallie: Feel Too Old To Party

All your life’s questions answered by Sallie, The Saint’s delightfully mysterious Agony Aunt. Submit your questions anonymously to Sallie on our Instagram or our website!

Dear Sallie,

Before COVID-19 I used to love going out, but now after nearly two years of 9pm bedtimes, that’s the last thing I can imagine wanting to do. I feel like such an old woman. How can I get my energy back?

Sincerely,

An Old Woman

Dear An Old Woman,

As much as we’d all like to stop it, age unfortunately catches up with us all. That is, until my search for the fountain of youth yields any promising results (I shall keep you all regularly updated on that score). While some people choose to embrace it, others lean forcibly against the wind and try to recuperate the magic of their youth. The latter type of problem-solving is what unfortunately leads to the Jake Gyllenhaals of the world going out with the 19-year-old Taylor Swifts, men in their fifties buying motorbikes, and your mom downloading TikTok and misusing terms like “bestie” and “slay.” In other words, trying to rekindle your fresher energy is the first step toward your quarter-life crisis.

As we grow, we get tired of the things we used to love. Most of us don’t love building blocks, making prank-calls, or running lemonade stands anymore. Public pools, we learn, are mostly full of pee and lose their appeal. Our Barbies and Webkinz eventually stay in their boxes, and we forget the passwords to their accounts. This is the way of aging. So if you’re finding that you lean more towards a movie night in with your friends than an all-nighter in the 601, then you shouldn’t fight it. Certainly don’t lock yourself in your house for the rest of your life, but honour your gut desires. You might be thinking, like most of us, that you should be at the same place in your life as you were when COVID-19 began — that this past year and a half put you on pause and now you’re ready to resume your life just as it was. That’s not how time and aging works, I’m afraid. It might feel terribly unfair that your prime clubbing days were stolen out from under you and now you’re too old to have the energy for them in the same way, but don’t despair — we’re all in the same boat. Many more third-and fourth-years are feeling those lost years’ effect than you realise.

If you really have the desire to jump back into your sub-Honours social lifestyle, then by all means make an effort to stay out that extra hour. Like all habits, you’ll just have to rebuild your tolerance to late nights and copious amounts of alcohol (know your limits, though). My honest advice, however, is don’t fight the tide. There will be new, fun activities that will become available in your post-clubbing years of life. Not better, just different things that take place before 11pm do exist, shockingly. It’s a matter of finding them out and then finding a group of like-minded Old Women and Men to enjoy them with.

All my love,

Sallie

Illustration: Kate Lau