I can't believe when I was in university, people would start pre-drinking at 10PM so they could go out already drunk and not have to pay for drinks at the clubs.
I remember doing that well into my early 20s, but instead so that I wouldn't spend nearly as much on $7 beers. Now if I'm not home by midnight at the absolute latest I turn into a grouchy pumpkin.
10pm seems late, lol.
Then again, my social circle would get off work, usually staggered by a few hours as people got off.
Then we'd head to the nearby watering hole and join in the festivities that were ongoing from people who opened lol.
Shop doors were shut by 8pm, give the floor a quick pass to clean up any major debris left over from the day (IE: run the push broom over all floors, scoop up, and dump) and then just making sure that a few things were stocked sufficiently for the morning. Like commonly used oils for oil changes.
Now... well,
Bed time is 9pm. I'm not currently working, but want to maintain a reasonable day shift for when I find work. I prefer overnight, but that doesn't seem to be an option where I moved.
Wife gets up, I get up, and start with applying for jobs and housework. Weekends mean she is working 7a to 7p, medical work, so standard. So we're up by 6:30 to get some food/caffeine in us before she works - though, if neither of us are hungry, I'll acquire any caffeine needed and cook later. I'm not cooking at 6:30am. Period. I will burn myself, one of the animals, or my wife, or the house down so.... no, I need caffeine first, lol.
If it's past 7:00 I'm not going.
I had this exact thing happen tonight. My wife is out of town, so I ordered dinner around 530 and started calling buddies to hang out. At about 7 after I ate, my couch was way too inviting, and vegetation occured.
Only reason I'm awake now was to tell the kids renting the Airbnb down the street to turn off their loud ass techno music that was vibrating my pillow.
Now get off my lawn.
Man, English is so wacky. After reading that post twice the structure fell apart in my mind, and I'm a native speaker. Hats off to anyone who picked up the language along the way.
"This can't possibly be the same 9PM at which I once would prepare for outings."
Does this work better, or am I crazy?
Yes, but with "fixing" the structure, you have robbed it of colloquialism. Maybe it's just me projecting.
I lived among non-native speakers for the longest time, and shaped my English using my knowledge of other languages to bridge some gaps in communication. Now I'm back to a native environment and catch myself slipping up with my invented phrases.
The thing is, I can't find another combination of words to convey the exact sentiment so succintly, even though I'm not sure it's gramatically correct.
This is a slightly wacky sentence. It's not wrong - it does make sense and communicates the idea, it just forces you to do a bit of work to straighten it out in your head.
I think the biggest issue is the way they unnecessarily used present continuous tense with "be starting to get".
It's convoluted and adds syllables. You could eliminate the "be" and "to" entirely and change it to "start getting". That starts with an active verb which feels stronger and more natural.
So then it would be:
"This can't possibly be the same 9pm I used to start getting ready for a night out at".
That preserves the flow & punch of the delivery but shortens & simplifies it a lot without losing anything imo.
Also ending a sentence with a preposition can be awkward. You read "at" and you need to refer it back to 9pm near the start of the sentence. Plus it comes after another preposition, which itself is not acting as a preposition but as part of the nouned phrase "night out", so you end up with "out at". Again, not wrong, but it can be awkward. I think using "at which" can move it closer to the noun it's referring to but it's not necessarily better that way.
Make that change and it's, "This can't possibly be the same 9pm at which I used to start getting ready for a night out".
It's a little easier to parse, but honestly I think it loses something, because it doesn't have a casual delivery. "At which" is evidence that the sentence was very deliberately constructed. It adds a syllable and loses some punch. I'd stick with just the first change personally.
I think I was able to bring the 'at' closer to the time, but I'm not sure it's correct:
'This can't possibly be the same 9pm I used to start getting ready at for a night out'
I'm tempted to remove the 'used to' and just put it in simple past for brevity, but that would hold back half the punch.
This is one of my favorite types of discourse. Polishing jokes and grammar in the gravitas it deserves.
And this is perfect example of using five words incorrectly, rather than the correct two.
It was like 10pm at night and my friend called me. "Are you still awake?" Of course, I said. "Meet me downstairs, we're going to a warehouse rave."
I had a great time that night. It's when I figured out how to dance to drum 'n bass music. I go to sleep ~1030pm now.
I'm fucking ancient in my 40s. I'm satisfied that I partied enough when I was younger, so I'm ok with this. The 22yo version of me would be horrified, but at least I still go to concerts. They're safe because the show starts at 8pm, so I can get wildly drunk and not remember most of the show and still be home early enough to get to work a little bit drunk the next day.
Local city is doing fireworks at 10pm.
I'm too old for this shit, just don't wake me up.
When you hit 30 9pm turns into 10 pm. Pretty much youll need to add one hour to each decade after that so 40 9pm turns to 11pm 50 y/o 9pm becomes midnight and so on. Then when you hit 75 you stay up until midnight and wake up at 5am cause you sleep all day anyway
This seems accurate enough to my experience lol
DEEP!
9 o' clock? Time to get home!
i remember in my mid 30s and hanging out with the younger millenials who were always like 'yea come meet at our place around 10:00 and we'll uber to downtown together' and i was always all LOL dude i'm already three quarters to being done drinking by 10pm and that's when you want to start the evening?
Dissenting opinion: some people need less sleep as they get older. iirc I needed the most sleep in my late 20s, but it's decreased since then.
It is the combination of the pandemic lockdowns made people yearn less going on night outs, and also the price of drinks have become too damn high!
The price of everything is too damned high.
I’ve lived in places where bars close at 1:30am and others where they don’t close and you end up going home at 6am or so.
I love being home by 2am lol
You're right, it's too bright out
