Why I Don’t Celebrate New Year’s Eve Anymore

I honestly cannot remember when I celebrated NYE the most exciting way possible. It feels like, over the years, my energy and tolerance of people have significantly decreased on this particular holiday.

I was probably in my preteen years the last time I went to an actual party. That was when my parents were good friends with another family who always put on big parties and I did stay up until midnight and popped some confetti bags here and there. There was no alcohol or kissing because I was too young to have to deal with that pressure.

Then once I reached my teen years and then I felt like the pressure was on. I began to realize what most NYE parties were like for teens and beyond. There would be more crowds, loud music (likely not music I enjoyed and that became vital once I became a Metalhead), lots of alcohol with likely people getting drunk and doing stupid things, and having to kiss someone at midnight.

People who know me well, I have never liked the taste of alcohol which is why I have been very selective with it, and I don’t like the way it makes me feel so that’s why one drink is enough for me. The idea of getting wasted for the hell of it is just a big no-no for me. I have always firmly believed that I don’t need to consume a substance of any kind to relax and when I see people drunk, I see them do things like have one-night stands; some of them are not always consensual if one participant is too drunk, or just do general crazy shit that I would never dream of doing. Having too much to drink makes me less alert and since my ADHD already causes me to space out from time to time, I would prefer not to make it worse.

So if you think getting drunk will help me “live a little” let me stop you right there, living a little for me is not getting drunk or high. My idea of living a little is binge-gaming on a day off, going to a concert – sober and enjoying the band’s music, or lounging in a hot bath with a Lush bath bomb dissolving in the water.

As for kissing someone at midnight, or should I say, kisses in general, that is also something I am very conservative about. I would prefer to save these lips for the right person. When someone from high school invited me to the NYE party at his house, I declined because I knew that he liked me and I had already turned him down since I wasn’t into him. I was worried that if I attended he would try to get me to stay until midnight if I made an attempt to leave early so he could try and kiss me to change my mind. Of course, the last thing I also wanted to do was he does kiss me and I push him away and yell at him in front of everyone, making myself look like a moron rather than the victim. At that time I was still working on some behaviour issues I had and probably wouldn’t have known at that time the most mature way to get out of a situation like that, so the best thing for me to do was to turn down the invitation.

I also often worry that at these parties, anyone who doesn’t have someone to kiss at midnight will try to kiss a stranger just to satisfy the demands. Even though it seems unlikely that that will happen if I went out for NYE, I would rather not risk it.

Oh and not to mention crowds and noise. I can tolerate crowds to a certain degree at concerts but anything else other than that, they make me anxious just like they do for lots of other people. The noise in general can also be overwhelming as my ASD can make me sensitive to certain loud noises more than people who are not on the spectrum.

So as time went by, I started spending NYE at home, a few times I did stay up until midnight glued to my computer, sometimes I would toast with my parents but that was all. Then one year I went out with my friends to dinner and then to the arcade, but we were home by 10pm. Now today, I find myself doing NYE where I’ll have a nice dinner with my parents and then I’ll disappear into my room to play video games for a couple of hours and I’ll be in bed by 10 or 10:30 depending on how tired I am.

In fact last year, I had just come off of my last night shift on NYE so I was in bed even earlier than that to get back to my normal routine. This year I get the New Year’s weekend off, if I could pick up a shift instead, then I would do so in a heartbeat. The big social scene on NYE is no longer for me, there’s just too much noise and peer pressure so if I spend that night in my PJs watching movies, playing video games, and the lights are out before midnight then that’s my choice.

If you want to party hard on NYE, knock yourself out, but for the love of Primus, do not get me involved and respect my choice to stay out of it. Thanks and have a happy new year.

👽Emily