Pretty much no matter how early I get out of work, how late I get out of work, how my day went, how little sleep I got the night before, if you ask me to do something after work, I will probably say yes. If at any point during the day, any plans are discussed, I will probably say yes. If you ask me to do something during my walk out of the building and on the way to my car, I will probably say yes. If you text me during the walk out of the building and on the way to my car to meet you somewhere, I will probably meet you there.
For me there is always a very strong desire to do something, anything right after work. When I was in my car leaving the parking garage, I thought “I really wanna do something right now.” I think it’s not really based on having a good day or an awful day at work, it’s just having a day at work. The need to go out and have some sort of fun, be social is very important. The social aspect is a large part of it, but not 100% of it. A few times last year I just went by myself to get fish tacos after work. That was fun. But I’d rather go to happy hour with a few people or to a baseball game or play basketball or whatever.
On the flip side to that, if I don’t end up doing anything and I make it home with no plans, once the shoes come off and I sit down at my desk chair to check facebook, twitter, tumblr, google reader, etc, there is a very good chance I don’t want to do anything the rest of the night. I will probably have a beer, some snacks, fall asleep for a little bit, check the same websites I just checked, basically fade in and out of consciousness and watch tv until I fall asleep for good. Some nights I’ll consider seeing a music show. If the show looks especially enticing and I already have tickets for it, I’ll go. But if it’s up in the air and no one else I know is going, I’m probably not going to drive to Silver Lake or Echo Park on a weeknight. And I go to more shows than almost anyone I know (in real life).
Of course, the nights that have loads of questionable decisions being made, “I spent how much at Barney’s Beanery?!?”, getting home after 1 a.m on a fucking Tuesday, puking at work the next morning, usually come from the nights that started off with, “hey, wanna get a beer at happy hour?”
