I am 26 years old. I have serious job (albeit this is constantly in question) at a serious company. I am entertaining the idea of moving in with my boyfriend, I pay my bills on time, am saving for a serious down payment on a car, and yesterday was asked to if I wanted to do a two-foot beer bong.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet my friends.
For my girlfriend's 27th birthday, she decided to have a good old-fashioned frat party. Kegs, flip cup, beer pong, completely un-harmonized "Sweet Caroline" renditions and jungle juice were all in abundance.
As I took a break from the revelry and checked my Facebook - which is officially now the Wedding Book - a realization hit me: Los Angeles is the town of lost boys (and girls). While nearly half of my social media reads as engagement albums and wedding boards, my friends and I are committed to a life of potentially post-prime debauchery.
I remember being 21, at the height of my college exuberance, going out six nights a week. Never letting an 8am class or a long day get in the way of what the night could bring. I remember thinking: god... 27 is so old. When I am 27 I will be settled, weeknight ragers will be far behind me, I'll host fabulously elegant dinner parties with name cards and napkin holders. I will be a real adult.
The current reality: doing laundry, remembering to take my make-up off, and getting to bed before 1am...all small victories.
And it's not just me. I live in an entire city that considers a non-hangover morning a bit of a failure. L.A. forces its inhabitants to live in a state of permanent cognitive dissonance, one where age equals greater income and success (which some may say requires maturity), but youth remains the strongest form of currency...resulting in a town full of lost boys and girls, refusing to really grow up. Fifty-year old playboys wearing glow stick headbands at Tiesto, forty-year old women sporting Uggs and a mini skirt (which let's face it, was never acceptable) and...27-year-old frat parties.
I have to imagine at some point we will all hit a tipping point, pack up our late nights, move to the Palisades where instead of rebel-rousing in public, we will just do it indoors with our kids sleeping upstairs (though I swear to never turn to Uggs and a mini). Until then I plan to live up this prolonged, L.A.-induced youth, take in the Never Never Land of it all...and wait for my age to catch up with me.
This post originally appeared on Sass & Circumstance.