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A few months ago, I ran into a party girl I used to know.
I have no idea when, where, or how we met, but back in 2021 and 2022, when I was a regular nightlife columnist, I used to bump into her often. It was usually late at night and both of us were at least a little bit tipsy and wearing something skimpy. I always thought of her as a good-time gal, well attuned to where to go out and then where to go next for more of a good time. (She’s a DJ, of course.) When I saw her again this spring at a bar in Bushwick, it was still light out — five in the afternoon — and I almost didn’t recognize her. Her skin was glowing, her eyes bright, and her vape in her purse.
As we caught up, we realized that neither of us had plans for that evening. I wasn’t sure how to feel about admitting that I was probably going to go home and drink a bottle of wine on my couch. What had happened to us? Was self-care the same thing as being boring? My column was born out of a desire to document all that pent-up post-pandemic partying. But how long can you keep that up? “Have you noticed,” my friend whispered conspiratorially, “some of the people who didn’t quit,” by which she meant quit partying the way we used to. “They’re looking real rough.” I knew exactly the kinds of messes she was referring to. I had been, since I gave up ‘are u coming?’ at the start of last year, trying to avoid becoming one of them.
Maybe it’s because I’ve reached the latter half of my 20s, but my friends are suddenly drinking less — or at the very least thinking and talking about drinking less — and throwing shade at our peers who can’t stop, won’t stop. (“He was doing Calvin Kleins,” cocaine and ketamine, “on a Sunday,” a friend sniffed to me recently.) Meanwhile, there is this media narrative pushing the idea that Gen Z prefers to stay at home and drink less. As for me, every time Friday rolls around I’m tempted to just get discreetly trashed in my living room. Or, at the most, go to a quiet bar in my neighborhood and get home well before sunrise. The idea of elbowing my way through a popper-scented dance floor only to wait on a line for a body-fluid-splattered restroom and then shell out $40 for an Uber only to wake up with a debilitating hangover sounds like hell. Or 2022, anyway. As the former club kid Waltpaper wrote in his memoir, “Know that it is not wise to bank on being fabulous forever.”
It’s been almost three years since I first started partying, professionally, for New York, introducing myself as someone who was “23, queer, single, and great at making poor decisions.” At that moment, while the city was reopening, nightlife seemed wild and wonderfully weird. There were new clubs, new parties, a new president, and a bunch of new young people in the city taking advantage of the suddenly (okay, as it turned out, briefly) way cheaper rent. For two years, I partied all over with all kinds of people. I went to sex parties and fraternity parties and fashion parties and singles mixers and raves and galas and Bushwick … over and over and over again. I got hit on by AOC’s gay little brother; high with Candace Bushnell; kicked out of Kaitlin Phillips’s apartment; and on top of Kevin Carpet. I made lots of friends and some enemies. On two occasions I’ll cherish/regret forever, I went on a 12-hour ecstasy bender with a single mom I met at a dive bar … and a 15-hour bender to Fire Island with an Instagay I barely knew. I had a blast, and nothing very bad ever came of my sometimes bad decisions.
But — and here is why I’m writing you this note. I do sometimes worry that I’m missing out on something. So this summer, I’ve decided to make the possibly bad decision to become a nightlife columnist again. I figure I’m rested up enough. I’ve gotten Botox, which should help stave off any haggardness, and I’ve stocked my fridge with frozen Pedialyte pops.
And I’m ready to see what’s out there. Enough time has passed that the “scene” seems to be turning over. There must be new late-night stars, new late-night hot spots by now. I’m hoping and praying I’ll never have to write the words Dimes Square or Caroline Calloway ever again.
For the next few months, are u coming? will return as a limited-run newsletter for New York Magazine subscribers only. Every two weeks, starting June 5, I’ll be sending you a dispatch from a night out in the city, plus a few recommendations for places to get tipsy yourself. (Here’s my list of 111 clubs, gay bars, and dives to hit this summer.) Consider this a call to action if you, like me, have felt the gravitational pull of the sofa. I am, after all, only 26. Maybe I can grow up and put my life together next year. And if you know of any good parties, or would like to offer me a place to stay in the Hamptons, you know where to find me.
I’ll see you on the dance floor.
Kisses,
Brock Colyar
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Brock Colyar , 2024-05-30 18:00:27
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