Too old to go clubbing? Don’t make me laugh…

They say ‘age is but a number’, but for most middle aged people, spending hours in a sweaty techno dungeon (and emerging just as their friends and colleagues are going to work) doesn’t seem like an appealing pastime.

But is there an ‘age’ at which hitting the dancefloor becomes socially unacceptable? According to a study earlier this year by electronics retailer Currys PC World, and reported by Mixmag here, that age is 37.

According to the Great Indoors study, 31 is the age we prefer staying in to going out (!), with 37% of respondents saying there is ‘nothing more tragic than seeing adults in their 40s and 50s surrounded by twenty somethings in pubs and bars’.

Some of the reasons cited as to why clubbing no longer appeals to older punters include the hassle of getting dressed up, cited by 22% (clearly the respondents aren’t going to the same clubs as I am), as well as trying organising a babysitter (12%), and the cost of taxis (21%). The study is based in the UK, but could just as easily apply to Ireland or other countries.

Having just turned 37 a few days ago, I would hereby like to call this survey ‘utter bollocks’.

As the old expression goes, ‘you never set foot in the same river twice’, and nothing will ever match that youthful first embrace of the scene. But to suggest that approaching middle age should mean an end to the musical escapism that clubbing offers is just nonsense.

Those that grow up too fast miss out on the joys of being young, in other words.

Things are different, sure. Change is constant. The older you get, the more the faces around you in the club look younger. A steady 9 to 5, coupled with all the trimmings of prescribed adulthood – mortgage, insurance, kids, pets – puts paid to midweek clubbing, full stop. The 48-hour marathons of yesteryear make way for ‘sensible’ (6am, 7am?) bed times and pre-club disco naps. New musical genres (hello, EDM!) sound ingratiating. Post weekend blues last until Wednesday.

But each weekend is, and always will be, a chance to do it all again; to succumb to the  sounds and the strobe lights, to meet new friends and catch up with old ones.

After all, on the dancefloor, nobody gets old.

[Picture Creative Commons/Pixabay, EricBarns]