A Guide To Having The World’s Worst New Year’s Eve

Updated 13 years ago, December 27, 2011

New Year’s Eve is a delicate occasion. With the need for balancing the impulse to see as many friends as possible with the constraints of your budget and time, it’s tough to figure out how to make the most of your night. That’s why this year you should just give up. Stop trying to have the best NYE ever. Instead, you should try to shoot the moon. Have the worst possible night, in hopes that you’ll at least get a good story at the end of it. Obliterate your expectations and go for broke this year. You may be asking: How? How can I have the worst New Year’s ever? Good question. Here’s a handy guide.

Create Unreasonable Expectations

Last New Year’s Eve was okay, but this year’s is going to be the best night of your life. Sure, you’re coming off a recent breakup, and you’re unemployed, but this one night is going to make up for all of that. This is going to be the night you find your soul mate and a new job and a better apartment and Bigfoot and a solution to the debt crisis.

Once you believe all of those things, your expectations are sufficiently elevated. Your actual night can do nothing but fall short of these insanely lofty ambitions. You’re off to a great start!

Go to a Place With a Heavy Cover Charge

Paying forty dollars to gain entry into a sweaty, overcrowded bar might seem laughable 364 nights a year (365 during leap years), but NYE is the night that you spend a regular evening’s entire food and entertainment budget just to get in the door of a place you would never want to go. Bonus points if there’s a “celebrity guest DJ” playing music too loud to talk over in a space that’s too small for dancing. But wait: You get a champagne toast at midnight! That evens everything out, right? Wrong. It’s going to be miserable. On January 1st when you wake up with an empty wallet, you’ll totally regret your choice of venue. PERFECT!

Wear Uncomfortable Clothes

Make sure to wear your highest heels or otherwise least broken in shoes. Guys, wear your shiniest shirts. If you don’t have a shirt that’s shiny, one with a dragon will do. Ladies, wear your shortest dresses. Yes, it’s winter, but you’re probably going somewhere cramped and sweaty anyway. Then, when you go back outside, you’ll be sure to get pneumonia. Fashion advice in a nutshell: Get as high off the ground and sparkly as possible. Make yourself look like the ball that drops in Times Square if you can. Physical discomfort starts at home, and it’s one more way to make your night out especially unpleasant.

Make Too Many Plans

Say yes to everything. Agree to see every group of friends over the course of the night, even if your high school best friend is out in Brooklyn and your college best friend is in Denver. Promise to see them all. Create a rigorous schedule that unreliable public transportation, a scarcity of taxis, and the difficulty of finding a designated driver will render impossible. End the night with knowing you’ve disappointed everyone you know. Voila!

Fixate on Hooking Up

Resolve to sleep with a stranger. Or an old friend. Or an ex. If it happens, maybe it will be great! Maybe it will be horrible! If it doesn’t happen, you will decide that you are unlovable. The stakes are high. Disappointment is almost inevitable!

Black Out

What better way to have a terrible night than to drink so much that you don’t remember the fun parts and you completely ruin the following day? If you really want to have the worst New Year’s ever, make sure you have to hear about it from someone else on January 1^st while you lie in bed and moan about how much you need eggs and want to die.