On Partying “too much” and the Politics of Hanging Out

Why unstructured joy is not indulgent—it’s human.

Back in the nineties, I thought I partied too much.

I wasn’t drinking recklessly—three beers, maybe, sometimes just coffee—but I stayed out late, came home at 3 a.m., and filled my life with music, bonfires, bad singing at the Karoake bar, and spontaneous conversations with friends and strangers. Many were travelers from afar, given that I lived in a coastal town, an international surfing destination.

Going out felt like the beginning of every story worth telling. Sometimes I went alone, sometimes with my dog, Cayenne. We’d end the night at the beach around a bonfire with friends, laughter, and that fizzy feeling of connection—and often, even Cayenne would find a new friend to play in the waves with. Many of my friends had dogs too, and we wanted to “party” with them as well. I’d wake up the next morning in sandy sheets, still smelling like drift wood smoke and sea salt, feeling a certain one-ness with the universe. It was magical to be alive.

Back then, I suppose I was an extrovert.

What I know now is that I wasn’t partying too much. I was socializing—in the deepest, most natural sense of the word. I was following an ancient instinct.

Before “partying” became synonymous with hangovers and club culture, it meant something softer. Cake and punch. Pretty play shoes and charades. Gathering just to gather. To mark time. To giggle and dance. To be with.

That kind of togetherness is hard to come by now. Industrial life carved us into separate units: cubicles, nuclear families, siloed friendships. We learned to be productive, not present. In school, girls were punished for being “chatty,” boys for being “rowdy.” Social energy was pathologized early. Even in spaces meant for play—like Brownies or Scouts—adult structures and strange rituals suppressed the wildness in us, the magic.

“They stole our human experience and sold it back to us with a cover charge.”

Looking back, I’m a little angry.

We were built for connection, for shared work and unstructured joy. But someone figured out how to monetize our nature—our essence—by stealing it away from us and selling it back, putting our humanness on the black market. They turned friendship into networking, gatherings into nightlife, play into therapy. They fenced it all in and stamped a price tag on it.

So what now?

We’re older. Tree climbing isn’t so easy. It’s harder to skip in the meadow without twisting an ankle. But we still have each other. And that matters.

I’m choosing to gather again—with a few trusted friends, for no reason other than joy. No agenda, no performance. Just real-world, real-time, unstructured play.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll let Mr. Worldwide have the last word:

Please don’t stop the party.