Is life boring reading books than partying and drinking?

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I still get those thoughts I've spent a lot of time reading books and writing while other people were going out with friends for a party and a drink almost every weekend and stuff and I feel that reinforces the notion that doing that stuff in young adulthood (18 to 30s) is what people just do to enjoy life as though it's the "norm" and because I did little or much of that stuff, it makes it seem like I've "wasted the one life I have". It feels as though by comparison, I'm been a bore because I've got few mates, and spending time reading and writing.

I even started thinking recently when I started using weights to build up muscle that I wasted the 20s not going to gyms, running and stuff like people in their 20s are doing now. I went for a jog once in my teens and I remember my feet were killing me afterwards and I didn't do it again. I say I wasted time not going to a gym, but I actually don't find them interesting places to go to.

Society pressures everyone to believe that the most fun an adult human can have is partying and getting drunk. It isn't until (most) people reach their 30s or 40s that they realise there's lots of better ways of having fun than drinking oneself into a stupor in a loud crowded nightclub.

I find colouring in and listening to audiobooks and writing stories and watching DVDs and playing with my pets a LOT more fun than drinking and clubbing. I've always found bars and nightclubs incredibly boring, and I've never been drunk in my life so I don't know the thrill of that.

I don't think you waste your time reading and writing, this is one of the best things to do in life for me..
I went out in my early 20s from pressure and needing to conform. I nver enjoyed it, always led to isolating myself from society afterwards. I wish now I could have seen that what I liked doing, spending time with my books, comics and music cds wasn't weird, but what I enjoy the most.

25% of the people who go to the gym do that to hook up or start relationships.
That can be a useful option for those who can't date online, like short men.

Depends on the level of stimulation one actually needs.

"More" is not necessarily mean "better" for a person.

So go ahead -- if one thinks partying on a rowdy loud bars is "fun" because books are "boring", then they had better be someone with greater sensory seeking tendencies, enjoy risk and uncertainty, or end up with numbing by overstimulation as a coping mechanism to make it so.

Else, you might as well dunk yourself with ice water for the heck of it -- or work yourself to death without a reward or rest in between -- because everyone says it's "fun".


Really, the dichotomy is essentially cultural propaganda. It's just a form of socially constructed hype.

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I saw a similar question about FOMO over not going to parties and drinking and stuff on Reddit or quora and someone responded you are not missing out on those things but you might regret not having much of a social life and I don't know if that is the problem I have and not the parties and drinking. I seem to think if you did that stuff in life it will make you look back with contentment because you had fun socially than if you had few friends.

Yeah it was like that for me when I was younger. I didn't want to go clubbing, because I didn't like the idea of it, but I couldn't be happy with my choice because then I felt weird and left out and not doing things all my peers were doing, even Aspie/social anxiety people had more motivation than me.

It wasn't that I was unsociable, it was just that I was a homely sort of girl and didn't want to leave my comfort zone. But I was also angry with myself for not forcing myself to go out.

My mum would say "then go clubbing, if you want to much", and then when I said I can't then she said "well don't then". But she seemed to be missing the point and didn't seem to understand that I was having conflicting emotions about it. I think what would have made me felt most at ease about it all was if another young person in the family didn't want to go clubbing either and just preferred to stay at home. But when my younger cousins were all starting to go clubbing and getting drunk, I got depressed and angry with myself.

I had one cousin who naturally preferred to stay in and work on his paintings, but because he was NT he had friends who wanted to go clubbing and would often come round to his house and ask him to come out and he couldn't say no, so he went out with them. So I still felt like the only one in my family who didn't go clubbing.

"waste", "spend", "invest". Semantics and pragmatics

It's subjective

nope

"drinking is like borrowing happiness from tomorrow”

I have done it all and most of it is overrated. Clubbing in particular is a hell that most go through just to try and meet someone. I hear Gen Z find most of what our older generations did to find fun deeply uncool. With the internet and apps there are new ways to meet other people these days. Mind you, I can't stand the thought of the apps either.

Life's a struggle, what do you want from me?

I've always thought it was ridiculous that partying and drinking is so pressured on younger people in western society. Maybe because I tend to have black and white thinking, either something is good or it's bad, and I've have heard too many horror stories of what happens when people don't "drink responsibly", as if most people even do that, especially when they're young and firmly believe nothing bad will happen to them.

I've also seen at least how one close family member acted while very drunk, and while they weren't being violent or nasty, it made me deeply uncomfortable.

We should do what makes us happy and not what society thinks should make us happy. Too bad society often treats us like garbage when we do even when we're not causing any harm. I still remember how other teens wouldn't stop harassing and bullying me because of my interest in Garfield comics when I was young.

I got picked on at high school school for preferring to listen to music from the 60s, 70s and 80s, rather than the current pop music that was out at the time.
I was a typical 90s child, but since I became a teenager I suddenly felt like I was born in the wrong decade and yearned to be the same generation as my mother. But I just put it down to being more open-minded about music tastes, but other teenagers couldn't cope with that.

At least now in my 30s I can listen to what I want without being judged so much, because variety in music tastes becomes more socially acceptable when you're grown up. A lot of NTs in their 30s say they hate the new music and would rather listen to songs from when we were growing up and before. My NT cousin went to a concert with some friends, that were playing 80s music, which was before her time.

Although, ahem, my taste in music has become just a little bit extreme as of late, but hey, why not idolise the Father of Music? More people who love music need to know about him.