NYE in NYC and Why I Just Won’t

Another year, another blog post about my hatred for NYE.

If any of you are having trouble adjusting to the fact that today is New Year’s Eve, I feel you. Sneaks up on me every year ever since I turned about 27, but it’s amazing how I just don’t care anymore. Maybe that’s why it sneaks up? Whatever.

When I was younger, I had all the time, money, and energy in the world to make fun plans and brave the cold slash surge pricing. Now I’m older, slightly wiser, and way more tired. It’s also just absolutely absurd when you think about the options, which are plentiful yet minimal at the same time. “Let’s pay $150 per person just to walk into the shitty dive bar we go to every week! And not have a place to stand except in the toilet!”

The rest of the night goes something like this:

You’ll walk in and it’ll be butts to nuts. You’ll wait 10 minutes before the bartender even sees you, and you’ll get some passed hors d’oeuvres, if you’re lucky. Maybe a cold beef slider or some warm tuna tartare on a piece of melba toast. Oh, and you’ll get party favors! Like paper hats and glasses with 2018 written on them (and let’s face it, those haven’t looked good since 2000). Then at midnight, they’ll give you ONE free glass of prosecco or champagne (you know, to make that high price worth it) and play the ball dropping on a bunch of TV’s. Exciting. Everyone will kiss or hug someone, and then you’ll teeter home in high heels on the train, or pay roughly 4x the normal price for an Uber home.

OMG KAREN IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT. You know what else is totally worth it? Times Square on NYE.

Literally never. That was major sarcasm, in case you didn’t pick up on that. Standing in the freezing cold in Times Square for 12 hours with no bathrooms? I’d rather have Stevie Wonder pluck out each of my body hairs one by one with a hot tweezer.

But look, like I said, this is purely an aging situation. When you’re young, you’ll live for this shit. It’s the thrill of fresh experiences. “Everything old becomes new again” doesn’t really apply to nightlife in NYC. Once you’ve done your partying, you kind of lose your appetite for it. Some people can party well into their 40’s and 50’s, but as a 33 year old who has partied with the best of them for many years, I can say I’m ready to hang up my heels and be in bed before that dumb ball even drops.

My advice to anyone who is young and/or new to living in NYC: do these things. Make these memories. You’re going to want them one day. I love looking back on my previous NYE excursions and telling stories. How do you think old people become great storytellers? Because they have great stories to tell. 🙂

Oh yea. I was blonde for a while.

Hope everyone has a splendid NYE! Whether you’re alone, with someone, with someone you don’t even like, or with friends, try and make the best of it. Because then on December 31st 2018, you can look back and feel good about it. Or feel…something about it. You’ll never know what you’ll feel in a year, but you know you’ll be over it and ready to do it all over again in 2019. That’s the beauty of time, people.

HNY FAM. See ya in 2018. Enjoy the slideshow below from some of my NYE shenanigans of the past. Hover over the image for where/what year. And as for me tonight, I may go with my time-honored, family tradition of the Twilight Zone Marathon and a hefty order of Dominos, or I may drop into a couple house parties. That’s the only way to go, in my opinion.

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