A lads night out - limiting stress

This one is hard for me to grasp.

People always say things like this, but I look at a "night out" of ANY sort and all I see is a source of stress and massive amounts of brain-melting stupidity.

One of those things I'll never understand.

 

The problem I have with this article is it claims to have scientific validity yet sites ZERO reference material as valid ones do. Stating "A study by a University in" is not siting any empirical data.

 

That article is hilarious. Doing things you enjoy are good for you and lower stress. "A lads night out is good for people who hate going out and who don't like lads" would be a more interesting assertion. I wish one of these adorable emojis were laughing.

 

I’ve experienced this, guys on a guys night out bond over how attractive certain women are and so on and grow closer.

This tends to be inconvenient, but it is actually true. Nothing brings men closer together than objectifying women walking by and so on, no matter how wrong these things might seem

 

I was part of a "lad's night out" about a year ago and although the guys were all nice (other dads from a school group) and I'd met them once before at a BBQ, I honestly didn't enjoy myself. We met at a very loud busy restaurant and then met up again to see a super heroes movie that I wasn't familiar with. Like any social interaction, it wasn't energizing for me, it was draining.

 

I'm not a fan of lad culture. Even when I was drinking too much, it was never during nights out or pub crawls. When I pick up my partner from work in the town centre on Saturday night, it's a pretty ugly scene. People wandering around drunk and when it's a group of "lads" they tend to be the loudest, rudest and most unpredictable groups you see walking the streets.

There's a fair few of them where I work, and beyond small talk there isn't really much else I can do to relate to them. I'm lost when they're passionately talking about football/soccer, or planning their pub crawls, or talking about the FIFA or Call of Duty video games. I can't say I find any of it appealing.

They're nice enough people, but when they're tanked up on pints of cheap lager they're not pleasant company. I struggle to accept the term "Lad Culture" though. To me something cultural would be in relation to music, arts, religion, cuisine or language. Not downing 10 pints, getting kicked out of a night club for being too rowdy, urinating in a public telephone box and then throwing up their kebab on the pavement. Oh - and the group singing: loud and out of tune and sung with such enthusiasm. God help us all.

Ed

 

Strictly speaking I would think this phenomenon should be described as, neurotypical lads night out. Two of them had a fight in the road last night, drunk and loud, with the girlfriend trying to dissuade, overall unusual for this quiet road. The police attended, 2 women btw.

 

Truly a revolutionary discovery. It will change the world I'm sure.

 

Made a bit of research myself. The study was made on Barbaby macaques. Not humans.

Now, why ONE research on macaques was transposed immediately to humans? I won't even bother answering this question. It's INCREADIBLY sexist and doesn't take in consideration a lot of parameters that count within human society because they're not a group of macaque. I'm not saying we're not monkeys, but it's like saying "the males Barbary macaques enjoy spending time with other males" and with this information going in a chimpanzee group and having them do that. Have fun, because some chimpanzee groups are increadibly violent.
This is just something people thinking with their feet are using in order to support a sexist view of society. I can't believe someone was paid to write that. There's NO human study in this study! No social parameters (such as age, married, in couple, and so on), nothing, because the study concerns MACAQUES.

I wasn't offended by the onion rings but I'm really offended by the article's quality and the manipulation of the study.

 

When I read the title I assumed this would be a thread asking for tips on how to cope with the stress of lads night out!

I don’t recall ever having been on one of those: when I was younger I did spend evenings out in mixed company, and try my best to be sociable.

I tended to end up sat in the corner smiling faintly without much of an idea as to what was going on and drinking way too much to blot out the sheer noise of nightlife establishments.
Which didn’t work, and led to me attempting to converse with no filters at all... which in turn led to multiple silly inane arguments over nothing in particular adding to the stressfulness of the whole enterprise.

Found group cinema outings too much as well, I get overloaded by the noise levels and moving visuals in a cinema: on my own this can be bearable, even an enjoyable sensory saturation sometimes, but being expected to have any functioning thought process afterwards to converse about the film was beyond what I could endure.

 

ok this is hilarious. The findings are actually pretty interesting from a primate behaviour perspective, but then putting a title about "lads night out" above it? Ridiculous. As is calling macaques a "breed of apes".

If anyone's interested I tracked down the research paper: Responses to social and environmental stress are attenuated by strong male bonds in wild macaques

 

Ed
I agree with that aspect of lad culture.
However, I am also part of a group of men who meet round a fire once a month. (non COVID pattern)
We drum, share where we are. There is a set of guidance around how we share.

For me this is a male time for being together, sharing and bonding but not a laddish time. I appreciate and value this time with other men

 

Its true what that village people lyric says about macho men.

 

^ Who?

The frogs?

 

Hmm? Did a bit of an edit there, you mean AJs frogs?

The lyric strongly implies that macho men are closet cases and thats my experience too.

 

Yes, my little witticism made sense prior to your edit.

As a passing AJ reference...

Oh well

 

According to the School of Hard Knocks, that's not always the case. Throw a lot of drinks into the mix (and coronavirus - hello?) and you're asking for trouble.

 

I think it depends on the people taking part; Introverted guys who prefer spending time alone (like a lot of us) probably won't enjoy a lad's night out; especially when booze gets involved.
The same is probably true to introverted girls who prefer spending time alone - a girl's night out probably won't be a beneficial expenditure of your time, energy and resources.

 

Looks like what other people think is a fun time would be a torment for a lot of us!!