AIBU to think everyone has become boring?

[LilacHedgehog123]

Does being mid to late forties mean you have to be boring?

I used to have such a laugh with my mates but these days all they talk about is peri-menopause and laundry! One has to be home by 9 as they're tired and another 2 have given up alcohol. They say they'll have just as good a time drinking water. I know you can have a great night out sober, I've done it many times. But it's not the same though is it? I miss getting tipsy and giggling about silly things until late. Yes we can all have a good laugh sober, obviously. But it's not the SAME. I just really miss those nights out where we're silly and we embarrass ourselves and we laugh until we cry. But everyone else seems to have forgotten. It's WORTH the hangover and the being tired. It's not every day, it's just once every few months!

I've started binning them off and going out with work friends instead as they're so much more fun. I will always be there for my friends don't get me wrong, but when I want a night out, I want to go OUT OUT.

Does anyone else feel the same? When did having responsibilities mean you can't (very occasionally) be silly / stay up too late / be spontaneous? :(

@LilacHedgehog123
Sorry OP, but I think you sound really immature.
The things you're saying, your style of writing, the way you come across. You really do sound very immature for your age.
I'm mid to late 40s and I couldn't bear to be friends with you. I'd feel like I was hanging out with someone who was clinging on to their early 20s by their fingernails, which I'd find a bit tragic.
I want to be friends with women who've done all that when they were younger, and have come out the other side and are now more mature, more developed, more well rounded, draw on their life experience and who are much more interesting to talk to than you sound.
And I absolutely never talk to my friends about peri menopause and laundry!

My last 'proper' hangover involved me spending my birthday simultaneously peeing all over the bathroom floor and retching up stomach juice until the blood vessels around my eyes burst. For hours and hours. That was after about 7 drinks, with food, over the space of a long evening. I'm sure you can understand why I wasn't keen to repeat the experience ever again! They just got worse and worse as I got older.

I absolutely agree with you about the Menobores though. Some women have made it their whole identity and it's woven into any and every conversation.

My friendship group is mid 40s to mid 50s and we still have cracking nights out. The ones who still drink big can get a bit messy and annoying by the end of the night. I don't think menopause has ever been mentioned aside from someone occasionally ripping off a layer and asking 'is it hot in here or is it me?'.

Not drunk or a hangover but yes to concerts, good music, dancing, meals getting a bit tipsy and laughing (and yes not a fan of all the excess menopause talk although luckily my friends aren’t so bad for that). But I didn’t feel myself and out of mum zone until both were over 3 so a good few years only thought about work, children and wider family.

I get it. And with some people I feel I know more about their menopause than my own. It’s like some kind of health anxiety gets put on people and they have to tell your EVERYTHING yet somehow never ask how you are! Yes I get very tired and yes I get bad hangovers now but once in a blue moon it’s great to have a proper night out.

You can spot them even in this thread. (And, indeed, any MN thread.) Can't resist the urge to list all their peri symptoms even though nobody asked.

😆😃 love this. I agree with all of this and with @LilacHedgehog123 As some PPs have said, not necessarily anything to do with booze or no booze, that doesn’t bother me, just the mentality.

i'm kind of in the middle, i rarely drink out and about, but i'm not above booking a night in a hotel with a couple of friends, sitting in the bar having a drink and a laugh, staying up disgustingly late together..etc.

Clubbing and such is out of my league now, i'm disabled and can barely walk, never mind dance, lol, but i'm certainly not a 'in bed at 9, talk about the laundry & kids' kind of 44yo.

I'm of the opinion that i'd rather be a slide ungracefully into my grave sideways while laughing 'what a ride' kind of person.

Me and two of my fellow disabled friends, one a mom, the other a dad, all of us single, were wandering around Glasgow on a weekend out last month being positively feral.. was an absolute blast.

I skived off work and went for a (dry) lunch the other day with my friend, we're both in our early 50's. We were absolutely pissing ourselves laughing about our crappy menopause symptoms, whether hazmat suits are needed for both our daughters shit tip bedrooms, and the ridiculous stuff we got up to when we were 19. It doesnt have to be boring!

Yeah I think my friends got old before their time 🤣 I kinda miss the spontaneity of getting that message to go out and then suddenly pouring a glass of wine, putting on some music and heading out. Not very practical now I've got kids but this all stopped before anyway!
We'd dance, have a laugh, meet new people. It was exciting. I have lots of memories that have all fizzled out, no one seems interested in a proper let your hair down night.

I don’t like going out out, but apart from this I would agree. My friends just moan about their ailments and menopause and money, and it’s so damn miserable and boring.

Please can you, me and LilacHedgehog and all the other fun responders on here make this happen?!!

The friend who doesn’t drink is really fun and positive. It’s not about drinking it’s about abit of joie de vivre!

Met up with a group of old friends from although lovely their lives revolved around gardening and driving their teenagers around. They think I’m some sort of nutter as my local friends are always up for trying new things and fun nights out. Thank god for that - I would not want the gardening / lift giving life style at all. My teens get the bus home or an uber.

Mid life is pretty shit for some people and they just don't have the energy. I keep wanting to do something nice, like a spa day or cinema etc, but I keep falling asleep by 9pm, and would probably be asleep for much of it. I have a severely disabled kid (that I have to be active like a 20 year old for), a parent that died in the last three months, and other admin/changes/battles going on, all whilst trying to get back into work. Life is too bloody exhausting to be hungover, even if it is just every couple of months.

I do miss those carefree, superficial days, when going out and getting dressed up was everything though. I thought they'd come back eventually, but it's just getting worse for opportunities for that, and I can't be arsed with dressing up now anyway. Whenever I've been out in the evening my town is quiet, so I think everyone is the same. It's sad, but it's just the demands of modern life I think.

I’ve always been ‘boring’ - I’m a total introvert - but used to go out with friends and colleagues because it was just what everyone did (and I didn’t want to be called boring!). Now I’m middle-aged I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks of me and it’s rather liberating - I know for a fact I’m never voluntarily going to a noisy bar ever again. Perhaps some of your friends are feeling similarly… maybe they haven’t become ‘boring’ but are being more true to themselves these days.

Omg OP I am 100%with you on this. People don't want to go out. I party with younger people. Went batshit crazy 1st 2 years kids had gone to uni. Life is for living. Dont get me wrong I wil have a 9pm finish one night in the week but friends do NOTHING at weekends. I get bored and restless

Fair enough. I did the drunken irresponsible stuff for years, but there’s more than one way to live.

I think there is a lot of this in it. Also, I want to actually talk to my friends, not holler above the racket in a noisy bar or listen to their drunken ramblings.

I like hearing what they have to say and maybe it's those of us who aren't boring and have friends who aren't boring who actually enjoy each other's company without needing to stagger round late at night on a bender. To me the noise and alcohol were really props to younger people who haven't fully found themselves socially.

We partied hard well into our 40s.

I feel like I put the hours in and have earned the right to be boring. Never felt better, either 😇

Yup. Me too.

I mean I’d rather be friends with someone’s bit immature than someone who talks to people like you have hear. Just nasty.

OP isn’t talking about getting hammered every weekend. The drinking thing is a red herring that everyone has gone mad for because this is MN. She’s talking about not being a total misery about life which so many people are these days.

I think it depends on your hangovers. Id love to go out and drink but even a couple of drinks will have me laid up in bed for 3 days with a migraine and its not doable due to family and work. I'd love some sort of robotic liver to replace my dodgy one.

Why are the snooty ones making out that others are rolling drunk every weekend? I enjoy deep chats and sophisticated dinner parties too. it’s so rude and dismissive to say we are “clinging to our twenties”. Absolute nonsense. Our party group are 47-55 and proud to be so. Our kids are 20!

Why so rigid? Things have really opened up now and these “rules” that only certain ages and types of people are “allowed” (by who?!) to do specified things are breaking down thankfully.

A bonkers dancey night out every few months is great fun. It’s a shame if op would enjoy that but none of her crowd do.

I want to go on a night out with you 🙋🏽‍♀️ all my friends moved away so when we see each other, most drive. I'd love a proper night out!

No to getting pissed and dancing (over 40 here too) - it is a tragic look imo but each to their own.

However you must have boring friends if all they talk about is ailments and menopause.

Why would she be? We can still go out raving when we're 40 (or 50...)