I refuse to believe that anyone actually likes New Year’s Eve. If you're living your life the right way, you don't need one night of the year to force yourself to have an awesome time with people you love, because you're doing that throughout the year anyway. And those awesome nights happen the way real fun does—in a natural, unforced, unplanned way. Which is why for those of us you actually love fun nights, we kinda hate New Year's Eve.
I mean, do any of us truly have a penchant for a night that transcends grossly artsy pictures of us smoking cigarettes and clutching a bottle of pink Andre? Probably not, and if anyone answers "yes" to that, then they're liars. We all like New Year’s Eve in theory—but not in real life. Never in real life. Because in real life, New Year’s Eve is actually a royal pain in the ass. It's full of impossibly high expectations that inevitably result in disappointing nights that are all about running around trying to have fun—totally not worth the 24 dollar sequined dress from Forever 21 and matching pumps that slowly whittle away your ankle skin until you're nothing but bones and cultivate bunions.
My favorite New Year’s Eve thus far has been hanging out with my brother, drinking cranberry vodkas while playing Cards Against Humanity. Because those activities don't require any real planning, they didn’t invite any disappointment, and there was no pressure to Have Fun. I hate when holidays pressure you to Have Fun, because when you inevitably don’t, you feel like the biggest loser in the universe who failed to have a good time when you so clearly should have had a good time. It's a sad, traumatic affair, basically.
Here are thirteen more reasons why New Year’s Eve shouldn’t ever be glorified as a holiday or celebrated (in any way, shape, or form):
1. Innate pressure for the epic
Just the title itself is intimidating, as though this night of drunkenly swaying to Prince's "1999" dictates and shapes the essence of your new year. Spend the night eating mini-Snickers and playing tennis Wii? Yeah, good luck at ever finding success and prosperity in 2015. Who needs that pressure?!
2. The emotional torture that is finding a New Year’s dress
Sure, every single display case at the mall features some kind of sequined, gold and black outfit pressed up against glass, but you need to find the perfect one, because you can't just celebrate the brand new year in rags! (Sarcasm on high today, sorry not sorry.)
3. Spending half of December finding a suitable party
You'll vaguely remember that some guy you went to high school with is throwing a "low key" party at his apartment, but that's two hours away and you're lazy and that also requires forethought. Your best friend wants to go to the bars. Your significant other's cousin invited you to a bonfire over Facebook. But your body wants to stay in bed. The struggle is real.
4. Specific NYE events are cray
If a restaurant is offering a New Year's menu, you might as well go to McDonald's. And even then, I wouldn't count on peacefully finding a plastic chair to enjoy your crispy not-really-chicken chicken nuggets. Every building that is open on New Year's Eve is a zoo. It's terrible.
5. Surge pricing hell: Uber hikes up their prices by a million dollars
Well, basically any cab will overcharge you on most holidays, but New Year's has to be the worst. After all, you want to spend the night out, but you also don't want to sleep in some rando's closet or car, either. So, not only do you have to get somewhere you don't even want to go to, but you have to empty out half your checking account to get home (where you wish you stayed in the first place).
6. The impossible expectations of the NYE kiss
Hollywood and society have romanticized the NYE kiss to the point where now, if you don’t find someone to smooch, your life feels ruined and you feel insanely unloveable for no good reason at all. New Year's Eve movies and TV shows taught me that when you're least expecting it (like five minutes before the ball drops), you will be kissed and it will be beautiful and there will be fireworks and probably a wedding and then a baby and a job will health insurance. There is none of that. There is your gay best friend who pecks you on the cheek because he feels sorry for you (true story).
7. All your friends care about is finding someone to make out with
When I remember New Year's Eve in college, I just remember a blur of Borat neon yellow Speedos (don't ask), and chain smoking, waiting for all my friends to get back from New Year's Eve make-out land.
8. Everyone suddenly develops a champagne fetish
Champagne is delicious, but I swear, if you don't get your picture taken with at least one bottle of bubbly, then you have failed yourself this NYE, because pics with champagne bottle or it didn't happen.
9. Expensive drinks at bars
A really not-brilliant idea is to spend New Year's Eve at a bar, which is what happens sometimes when no one feels like catering fifty drunk and quietly depressed people. So, in a Fitzgeraldian fashion, we all head over to a bar big enough to hold half a town and we get our drink on there like the lost generation we all think ourselves to belong to. Except a Cape Codder will cost you like fifteen dollars, and we'll probably end up using our GAP credit cards to pay for them. But hey, it's what Zelda Fitzgerald would have done, so #YOLO.
10. Not being able to shampoo the confetti out of your hair for a week
I mean, do they manufacture anything stronger for this reason? Get the sparkles OUT OF MY TRESSES ALREADY.
11. Getting work off the next day, especially if you’re in the food and beverage industry
If you work in any kind of establishment that still operates on New Year's Day, then you know just how painful it is to function after a long night of bottom shelf champagne. Chances are, you'll be serving brunch, and you'll need to, ugh, smile. And inhale eggs Benedict all day long. And fight back the bile creeping up your throat every time you have to serve another mimosa. Not good times.
12. Worrying other people’s New Years will be cooler than your New Year’s
Even though you absolutely loathe NYE and want nothing more than to put on your PJs and fuzzy socks, the thought of everyone else having a good time will make you feel sad. WOE AND DISILLUSIONMENT IS YOU.
13. Staying up way past your bedtime.
Give me Taco Bell, or give me an early bedtime!! Because this whole midnight thing is just not working out for me anymore.
Images: Clay Larsen/Flickr; Giphy(7); Gina Vaynshteyn
