Like every other millennial I know in the thick of the August doldrums, I am obsessed with the sophomore season of FX’s Adults, a winning ensemble comedy about a group of friends living together in Queens. Having shaken off the “well, it ain’t Girls” sentiment that plagued its first season, the series has become something genuinely novel: a show about twentysomething New Yorkers hanging out that doesn’t make me want to rewatch Friends instead.
There are plenty of high points this season—the Emmy campaigns for Owen Thiele and Amita Rao start now, in my opinion!—but for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about Season 2, Episode 2, in which Lucy Freyer’s Billie attempts to mentor the 20-year-old girl who has come into possession of Billie’s old fake ID and ends up wondering if she’s become too old for the club herself.
Relatable, right? Totally…except that Billie and her friends are 25 years old! To paraphrase The Virgin Suicides, they’re not even old enough to know how good clubbing gets!
I’m not exactly a nonagenarian breaking boundaries by still going out on weekends; I just turned 33, and I’d like to think I still have the skin and the joie de vivre of a 31-year-old. But, like Billie, I’ve flirted with existential crisis (and questioned my roster of going-out tops) after seeing people who do not appear to be legally old enough to drink all around me at queer nightlife spots like Mood Ring in Brooklyn or Honey’s in Los Angeles. One thing that’s become apparent to me in my 30s, though, is that my mom was right all along when she insisted that this decade would be better than my 20s—a wisdom that applies to work, love, and friendship, yes, but it really applies to going out.
It’s no secret that LA, the city I currently call home, is youth-obsessed to a fault, but I was way more bothered by that fact in my mid-to-late 20s than I am now. These days, I simply don’t care if everyone waiting in line to overpay for a glass of natural wine at Baby Battista or Cafe Triste is a decade younger than me; instead of feeling intimidated by their youth, I cast a sympathetic eye at their uncomfortable heels and impractical purses and simply want better for them than a one-sided night-long flirtation with the bartender whose whole job is to be nice to you.
The key to having fun at the club, I’ve learned, is contained within two simple, almost Girl Scout-ish mantras: 1) Preparation is your friend and 2) Adjust your expectations. When I shoe-shop, I do so knowing that the quickest way to ruin a night out is by donning a pair of finicky kitten heels that kill my arches. To that end, I’ve amassed a collection of designer-collab Crocs by everyone from Simone Rocha to Stella McCartney that allow me to dance the night away in style.
Of course, party preparation isn’t just about footwear; I also leave myself a “tomorrow kit” consisting of chilled water, Advil, and a granola bar on my bedside table if I’m really planning to tie one on. I also know exactly where to get Narcan—you should, too!—and how to use it, just in case someone I’m with or someone I happen upon at a bar or club needs it. I rarely buy purses anymore unless they’re crossbodies that zip closed—a must for getting wild on the dance floor and ending the night with all of your possessions accounted for—and I’ve learned the hard way that it never hurts to leave the house with $20 in cash, just in case you do lose your debit card. (It happens! To me! A lot! Even when I’m wearing a zippered purse!)
