Happy & Healthy

THE SOCIAL MENOPAUSE – ARE YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF IT?

Calm down, calm down! I will explain what a social menopause is in just a few seconds. But first, I must confess that I stole the phenomenon/expression from the most amazing blog in the whole world: The Man Repeller. 
Whatever indeed. Better well stolen than poorly conceived.
So, the social menopause. Here’s the deal. In the first half of your twenties, you are wonderfully on a roll. Partying is your plan, five days a week. You meet hundreds of new people, drink liters of Red Bull/wine/beer/champagne/vodka/gin and tonic/Sex on the Beach/mojito/whiskey/limoncello, okay I’ll stop, and in between, you experiment with interesting things like Tinder and perhaps also with drugs. Oh, and you are of course busy studying or rocking your first job. Energy to spare. Rambambam, nice goingzzz, nice going.
Until you undergo the so-called change. Suddenly, you just don’t care anymore. Suddenly, you’re done. Finished. Out of words. Out of dance moves. Shaken out with that booty. You have absolutely no desire to hang under a blaring speaker in a dirty greasy tent and simultaneously risk hearing damage. You have absolutely no desire to stand on impossibly high heels in a sexy way on a bar. Or on one of those little stages, you know. No, there’s no more polonaise for your body. You just want to binge-watch Netflix. Or go out to dinner with your bestie and spend hours talking about The Future. With of course a good bottle of wine or two, because you haven’t suddenly gone crazy. Anyway, whatever you’re going to do, you dive under your brand new crispy bedding from Zara Home or Crisp Sheets at 11:30 PM, tired but satisfied, to buy a bunch of luxurious flowers from the flower jeweler the next day, as fresh as a daisy (approximately). And then you drink coffee on your balcony, in the fresh morning sun. YAASS!

“No, there’s no more polonaise for your body.”

Recognizable? Then you are in a social menopause. And there’s nothing weird about it. Your wanted hairs are just a bit gone. What I do hope for you is that you go through the social menopause together with your dearest friends. Because otherwise, they will probably find you quite boohhhring, and you will find them dooooodvermoeiend. If that’s the case: keep your spirits up and hope, because you probably won’t have to wait too long for support. The age at which twenty-somethings enter the social menopause seems to be getting lower and lower. Stronger: staying home is really the new going out, even among early twenty-somethings. Although I would like to add a note to that, because I don’t believe we only want to sit at home. I think it’s also very much about checking out the coolest, newest restaurants with your bestie or new love. Going out to dinner = also the new going out. Not for nothing is there a persistent boom of new trendy restaurants and not for nothing do you mainly see photos of cool dining spots on Insta instead of cool clubs.

Now, to talk a bit about myself – because I haven’t done that for a whole blog – my social menopause started when I was 28. I was once again dancing on a bar, but suddenly I just couldn’t move properly anymore. And it had nothing to do with the drinks, tssssss, but everything with a sudden, total awkwardness. All the movements I made (with my body and my face), everything suddenly became so extremely weird that it was almost scary. It felt so pointless, so STUPID. I broke out in a sweat and all I wanted was to get away, away away.

“staying home is really the new going out”

In the period after this debacle, I was shocked to notice that the aversion to hanging out in a club again grew larger and larger. I made excuses for why I couldn’t go, why I had to go home, why I really couldn’t have a hangover tomorrow. But after a few months of making excuses, I knew it was time to embrace my new self – the one after the change – to show my new self to the people. So said, so done, and now I can only say: I regret waiting so long. I like my new self very much. The real conversations with my bestie during dinner = HEART. My Netflix nights with Love = HEART. Those long (crystal clear) Saturday mornings with coffee on the terrace = HEART. The fact that I still remember who I had sex with on Saturday = HEART. Going out to dinner = HEART A LOT OF HEARTS. In short, I’m quite happy with that social menopause, you wouldn’t believe it!
Or maybe you actually wanted to know that, because otherwise you wouldn’t have read this piece. Or am I crazy? Anyways, that’s actually it.
Drop the mic.