Partee Down

When I was younger I was worried I'd become one of those older guys who was only attracted to younger gals and guys. Sure, love (and lust) knows no age, and there are younger guys and gals into older guys,* but the older guy in those cases often seems sad and even pathetic.

I'm now just over the half century mark and happily I'm mostly attracted to guys in a sensible range of my age. I find the younger models attractive, but in a way I find Michelangelo's David attractive...I like looking at it but I don't need to touch it.

My age related problem is music and partying. 

I like a lot of music that seems too young for me. Most of this is college aged indie artists, some EDM, and definitely chill. It's fine if I'm just listening to recorded music. Its not so fine if I want friends my age to give the music a listen as they generally won't. It seems most folks my age have music preferences that were set in concrete sometime around high school or college. 

It's also not so great to go see younger bands live. I went to a show a few years ago featuring two of my favorite bands (Cataldo, the Red River) and I was the oldest person there, bouncer and bartender included, by at least 10 years. I felt like a helicopter dad keeping an eye on his daughter.** 

As for partying....I've never really partied. I didn't start drinking until I was 30 and most of my friends until then didn't drink or smoke pot so the raucous high school and college parties never happened for me.

I don't feel I missed out on anything by not hitting the we-got-so-wasted! parties. But I like a cool party with fun people, low lights (or colored ones), loud music, booze and smoke, that lasts into the near dawn hours. Or a bonfire with loud and fast country music and lotsa beer. Or a bar crawl that goes to last call. I don't want to do these things all the time, it's just an occasional inclination.

Unfortunately for me the people I'd most like to have such a night with, my friends and acquaintances, are people my age who like to be in bed by 11. (Or have to be in bed by 11 because they'll literally fall asleep if they're not.)

So I'm usually a party of one. Some nights I just drive around (sober) with whatever music is resonating with me at the moment cranked up loud (turned down in residential areas or at stoplights because I'm very conscientious of others). In the city the buildings, streetlights, and lighted signs make up for a lack of interaction with others or scene scoping.

In summer and fall I'll have an outdoor fire, beer and bourbon, fast and loud country music, and occasionally a cigar. I'll drink and smoke and stare into the fire. Except for the music, anyone who saw me would just think some guy is burning leaves at night while drinking beer.

There are nights when I turn on colored lights, turn up the EDM or chill, and drink whatever while I write stuff like this or letters to friends. 

My solo partying seems sad, but it is what it is. I could just plop on the couch for five hours of TV and beer. Or find a bar where the guys with no lives are spaced out throughout the joint and along the bar, nursing drinks and staring listlessly at the muted sports on TV, no one talking to anyone except the bartender and waitress. Give that option I'd really rather be home alone with music I love and much better drinks.

* Or older gals, but I don't think too much about gal-gal attraction or what women straight guys like.

**After a show for the band Iji, where I was again the oldest person around (emphasis on old), I asked the guy who essentially is the band if a single they'd put online was available on CD. It was not, but it was available as a special cassette single release. I wanted to say "Oh, that's adorable." But I just put my 2 cents in that I hoped the song would make it to a CD release. (Iji later made the song available as a free download. Thanks, Iji!)