At What Age Are You Too Old For The Club?

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This one pains me to write.

About a week ago, I posted a blog saying I’m officially a dive bar over club guy and I still stand by that. But I recently went back home to Florida for a wedding, and on Friday night, some of the boys thought it’d be fun to hit up our old stomping grounds. Naturally, we ended up walking into a club we used to go to religiously. We spent countless nights there, made memories that will last a lifetime, and still laugh about some of the wild shit that happened within those walls.

But this time? This time felt different.

We walked in ready for a wave of nostalgia, hoping to relive a bit of our youth, but we were hit with the harsh reality, we no longer belong there. The music was the same, the layout hadn’t changed much, and even the bartenders looked familiar but we felt out of place almost immediately.

Now, to be fair, it wasn’t a high end club, so the door policy wasn’t exactly strict. But still, feeling like the oldest people in the building at just 25? That was unsettling. Maybe if we’d gone to a more upscale spot in South Florida, I’d have felt differently. But I can’t shake the thought that once you’re old enough for certain clubs, you’re probably inching closer to being too old for others.

Maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe it's just the creeping anxiety of being closer to 30 than 20 that’s messing with me. It’s a weird phase growing older while still feeling like a kid inside. But here’s the thing, I don’t think outgrowing the club scene is necessarily a bad thing.

Like I said, I genuinely prefer a great dive bar over a club any day of the week. Give me good conversation, touchtunes, and cheap drinks over bottle service and strobe lights. But it does make me wonder, when exactly do you hang up the tight jeans and button-down shirt? Is it at 30? 40? Or is it right now, at 25?

I don’t have the answer, but I do know one thing, I don’t miss clubbing nearly as much as I thought I would. And honestly, that realization stings a little, but it also feels oddly comforting. Maybe growing out of the club scene just means growing into something better.