Fuck New Year’s Eve
I’ve waited in bars at 11:59, certain this was the year—this was finally going to be it. Midnight hits, everyone screams, I feel the same as I did at 11:58. Hungrier for something to happen, but nothing does.
Everyone talks about New Year’s Eve like it’s supposed to be some kind of turning point. The perfect party, the perfect people, the perfect moment where you feel alive and ready for whatever comes next. One night that justifies the entire year. Except it never does.
I’ve spent it in the wrong bars with people I didn’t actually like, in a friend’s apartment that was too loud, alone because that felt more honest than faking it. I’ve seen couples fighting at midnight, watched friends get destroyed and cry into their drinks, waited outside in the cold for something to feel like something. It never does. It’s just another night that happens to change numbers.
Every year I think I’ll finally figure out the formula—the right people, the right place, the right headspace. And every year I’m wrong. The night comes, it happens, and it’s either fine or boring or uncomfortable, but it’s never the thing I imagined. It’s never transcendent. It’s just a night where everyone’s performing the same expectation at the same time.
The weird part is that once I stopped needing it to be something, it got easier. I’ve had better conversations on random Tuesdays than on New Year’s Eve. Moments that mattered more because nobody was trying to make them matter. The pressure to feel something specific when a clock hits midnight is what ruins the whole thing.
So I’ve learned to just exist that night without the agenda. Sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes it’s completely forgettable. Sometimes something actually happens because nobody’s working so hard to make it happen. I don’t know if that’s wisdom or just lowered expectations, but either way, it beats the alternative.