You tell yourself it’s going to be a calm night, and even you even believe it for a second.

You pick an outfit that says «I’m not doing too much,» you mentally set a leaving time, maybe even remind yourself you have things to do the next day just to stay grounded. And for a while, it almost works. But then the music gets louder, the energy shifts, you run into the exact people you didn’t expect, and suddenly the version of you who was «just going to hang out for a bit» completely disappears. At some point, going home stops feeling like an option and starts feeling like something you’ll deal with later.