I want to be 18 again and getting ready in my bedroom for a Friday night

[Robofoof]

In my bedroom at my parents house
90s music playing
I'm tiny and have a huge wardrobe
No idea where the night will take us
Pubs are busy, I'll probably get a few drinks brought for me
I'm going out with £20 for the whole night

Happy days

I dropped my 16 yo at a party this evening - he hasn’t been to many before so was quite nervous, and therefore grumpy and going on about how it was going to be “dead” and “lame”.
We arrived and as he got out of the car two girls he knows came up, all glammed up, greeted him etc. He asked them who was there and they replied that classic of a teenage party: “Oh - EVERYone”.
Happy days 😍

God I miss those days. Being able to fit comfortably into something skimpy, basic make up with a touch of glitter gel. The local club sent out vouchers to women only for entry £1. I didn’t drink back then, I just went for the dancing. Either that or off to a gig for £8-15. Didn’t realise how cheap it was! Then Sunday morning getting the train up to Camden Market for cinnamon donuts. Take me back.

My own dd is right in the middle of this stage - year 13. She has a group of lovely friends - boys and girls. She’s not 18 till the summer but every weekend now there is one or two 18th parties. I love seeing her planning and getting ready, vinted parcels arriving, hair curled, loads of perfume, me pretending I didn’t hear her check that her friend had bought the vodka! This stage will be over all too soon so I love that they are having such a good time.

Oh to be 17 again! ❤️

User147:

I'll raise you smack waterjacks

😉

Love this thread. Although I wouldn’t want to do it now I loved 1996, at uni living with two friends, Saturday mornings would be spent shopping (£20 would get us a lovely outfit), then we’d relax together all day, get dolled up to the nines- sharing clothes and cheap make up, drinking Lambrini. We'd dance till the early hours and then fall asleep on each other’s beds. There was no pressure to do or be anything, no one relied on us for anything, it really was carefree.
It’s nice to remember these times, realistically we all had issues (relationship/eating disorders/ family problems) but it was nice to have times that were just about enjoying the moment.

Oh God. When I was 18 I was desperately shy and awkward but would force myself to go out on a Friday night so that I wouldn’t end up dying lonely and alone.

I used to borrow books from the library about how to be confident and use good body language. I’d copy out the tips on a piece of paper and take it in my handbag so I wouldn’t forget. Awful! I’d never go back to being a teenager.

Well you've answered my question then: apparently that all these memories of " having fun" as a teenager are actually real for the people on this thread.
That people like me are just weirdos.
I don't know what " care free" is and never have actually.

And then get up the following day and sit watching tv again!!! Ah op yes, wow!!

SoChangethenameagain
I can't work out whether all the pp on this thread are seeing things through rose coloured glasses or whether they really did have wonderful, carefree , exciting teenage years.
How did you all manage such problem free lives? How were you all so confident and care free?
A different reality from a lot of us.

I worked in the evenings on a Thursday and Friday night and then all day Saturday or Sunday (never both). What were your stressors at 18? (Honestly I’m wondering, were you away from home? Did you have children young? Was it a bad home life?) Was it not less stressful? Now life is rushing from half six in the morning to night time, school runs, work, worrying about the kids getting home/ being minded, paying bills, car trouble, plumbing trouble, marriage trouble but hilariously in my mind I keep thinking‘I never get to just … sit. Back then I just sat all the time!!!!

I was classier 😀! Because of dad’s job l was brought up in Paris. On a summer’s night we used to go down to the bridges over the River Seine and flash our boobs to the tourist boats. No risk of finding yourself on the internet the next day back then. 🤩

I had the usual teenage angst but you know what it was nothing compared to the heartbreak of an abusive marriage, constant money worries because the cost of everything goes up. It was a different time.

So yes I look back as an adult to what was a carefree time with a smile and remember the good times.

When I say carefree, I had no worries, no anxiety, no responsibilities, still lived at home and life in general was good. I was happy.

i do think being 18 is hard for some people depending on their home life, if they have had a baby young, if they have had to move out of their home young, if they have had an ill parent, lost a family member.

i had a pretty hectic childhood, losing a parent to suicide at the age of 4, my other parent not having much money and having to be watched by a grandparent and aunts lots to allow the other parent to work to feed us, but by 18 things had levelled out regarding family life. I wasn’t the most confident but I had amazing friends and a lovely boyfriend.

Carefree as in…
I didn’t have kids yet,
I had a decent disposable salary,
both my parents hadn’t yet developed dementia and required care,
my partner hadn’t died young of a heart attack
My chronic pain hadn’t started yet,
l wasn’t constantly relied on or on call to sort out the next crisis and had no crisis of my own.

Don’t worry, those things were all on their way pretty soon, some even into my early twenties. Between that and the poverty and toxic home life of my childhood there was a small pocket of carefreeness I look back on with nostalgia.

It doesn’t make you a weirdo that you experienced a different life to a lot of us here. Be kind to yourself. At 18 I was carefree because I had a good home life, full time job earning good money, a car, great friends and no real responsibilities. Shit happened, and still does happen, but I deal with it as and when. I’m aware not everyone has been so lucky in life.

2000's for me but I'd love to be sat on my best friend's floor whilst she did my hair before a teenage night out one more time. 90p alcopops and dancing until it was light. Smoking area conversations with people I'd never see again. Absolutely nothing to do the next day except eat and talk about the night before...

I love my life now and wouldn't change it, but I wish I'd appreciated how carefree I was back then!

I do know that song and I think that maybe there were just less of the ‘beauty queens’ in my world, so less of the comparison. I guess I, and my friends, did all have our own insecurities but that didn’t stop us making the best of ourselves, heading out and having fun.

Oh how I loved my dream matte mouse!! I shudder to think how I must have looked 😂

For me, it’s 2004. I’m wearing a denim mini skirt with a beady belt, cowboy boots, Jane Norman top and dangly feather earrings.

I’ve borrowed my friend’s GHDs and my hair has never been so swishy. The Lambrini is flowing and I feel amazing!

Oh 1991 for me! At university. Ripped 2nd hand Levi 501s from the cool shop in town + sheer, vintage lace blouse + lace up brogues + crimson red lipstick. Waist length, blonde, spiral permed hair. And lashings of Eternity by Calvin Klein. Subsidised student bar (triples for a £1) and then onto a student club with epic music and sticky dancefloor. Pints of snakebite & black.

Your mum is going to be soooo cross when you drop those bronzing pearls on the carpet.

Ha! You’ve brought back memories!

my clubbing years were late 80’s early 90’s. I’m off to a daytime club today…..no idea what it will be like 😂

I’m 35 but me and my best friend are going into the city today/tonight.

We are staying over, bringing a bottle of pink gin for “pre-drinks” and will do makeup and be ridiculous before heading out in our too short dresses for a throwback night

Husbands and children safely planted at home. I AM BUZZING

Jesus Christ I’m 34. Not 35

I think this is bang on - but also when I was 18 there was no single proscribed version of female beauty that you could be judged against and found wanting. I had a bleached blonde boy crop and wore my dad's suits out and felt great and confident because by the standards of my" tribe" I looked good.