Nightlife: The Before & After

(Written for MTV Sticky)

Whilst there are many stages to a night out that we don’t plan – the loss of memory, a phone, a purse, the contents of your stomach, or worse yet, your dignity – whatever a night out brings, there are a couple of things that we all plan to do the same: the before and after routine.

A universal stage of a night out for young adults is the way we prepare for the night ahead: the pre-drinking ritual.

The stages of getting ready are no longer the same without a couple of friends and a drink to go with it. With a few hours to fill our bodies with alcohol (mine’s a bottle of rosé, please!) before the taxi arrives, this pre-drinking routine is something we have all perfected and is a fundamental part of the night.

Why do we do it? We tell ourselves it’s the best way to save money in the long run, but the truth is we don’t actually drink any less once we’re out just because we’ve lined our stomachs beforehand. In reality, we just like a few cheap drinks to help us get excited for the night ahead, and we all have our own unique rituals with our preferred choice of drink and prepared playlist to go along with it.

And then comes the morning after. We may not remember much from the night before and the stamp from that club we went to may have accidentally re-printed itself onto the sides of our faces, but there’s one thing for certain – we need bacon (or something greasy, anyway!).

This is followed by a day in our pyjamas and lounging on the sofa with a duvet; now it’s time to catch up on the events of the night before with those who remember our actions more than we do ourselves. Uploading our pictures to Facebook and tweeting how we will never drink again (with the additional #neverbeenthishungoverinmylife, of course), our post-drinking rituals are just as routine as our pre-drinking ones.

So whatever the night entails, and it’s pretty certain that we will never experience the same night twice, at least we will remember the good time we had before the taxi and that our friends and the photo evidence will be there to stimulate conversation the next day.

(Image courtesy of here)