You ride that high with your person once you get home, and then you actually let yourself like the calm. That's how we beat the post-party blues, or at least how we keep trying to.
A Nebraska couple wrote in after a Halloween hotel takeover. They had an amazing time. Then they packed up the car, the bubble popped, and regular life felt harder than it should. They wanted to know how we handle that comedown.
Listen to How to Beat the Post-Party Blues on Apple Podcasts. More episodes live on the show page. This week we are aboard the Bliss Cruise, so we will get to test our own advice soon. Read our Bliss Cruise sail day take.
Listen to Tuesday Talks 134 on Buzzsprout or ▶️ Watch on Apple Podcasts.
Lacy, on the first night home: ride it with each other. Talk about the weekend and come back together as a couple instead of unpacking and dropping straight into regular life.
Dan, on the first night home: keep a little spark going in the in-betweens, spicy pictures and a Snapchat group with friends, until the next party comes around.
What happens when the hotel bubble pops?
You know the feeling. You've been in this little world with your friends, everything is fun and a little wild, and then you're home. The kids need you. The dog is making a mess. Your boss wants a report on his desk tonight, and all you can think about is going back to Hedo, the Bliss Cruise, Swinger Society, Secrets. Regular life feels like a crash after that bubble.
That's the comedown we were talking about. Lacy called it a great question. She also wondered whether our answer would even sound the same as a couple that only goes once or twice a year, because we go to a lot of things.
How do you ride that high once you're home?
Lacy's first instinct is to ride it. Come home and stay in it with each other. Talk about the weekend. Come back together as a couple, not just unpack the bags and drop straight into regular life.
We used to be really good at that. We would get home still all over each other, still on that high from the drive back. The last handful of events have been different, and we'll be honest about why. We're working those weekends, so we get home and we're just done. She doesn't want to be touched, or even really looked at, for a couple of days. Then a week later we finally remember to reach for each other again. That's on us. We could do a better job of riding it, and we know it.
There's a buildup before you even leave, too. A couple of days out, you already know you're about to have a dirty weekend, and that energy is already in the house. Then you go, you have the weekend, and the high that comes after is a different one. You're not at the party anymore. You're just with your person, talking about what you saw, what you did, how the other one looked. That's the part worth keeping.
And then there's the other half, which Lacy was pretty clear about. Embrace the calm. Sometimes a regular Tuesday night with your spouse is pretty great. Having a normal everyday life is part of what makes the parties fun. If it was all parties, there would be nothing to look forward to. The up and down is okay. It's supposed to feel like that.
How do you keep some of that excitement between parties?
Dan's version of riding it is the in-betweens. Spicy pictures. Snapchat groups. Little ways to stay flirty with each other, and with friends, while you're back in regular life. We don't have vanilla jobs anymore, but he can still remember taking a lunch break, picking up his phone, and there it was. A naughty picture from a friend. Lacy talking dirty to people. Just enough to keep a little of that spark going until the next time.
We're not perfect at the calendar either. We tell ourselves we'll only do ten events this year, and then it is twenty. Lacy likes to blame him. He says she is usually the one booking everything. Her take is simpler. She wants to go to other people's parties. He wants to host them. That's a difference.
Dan also remembers sitting in a cubicle after a wild weekend, looking around at work, and thinking the guys there had no idea. Lacy said that's kind of fun, and she misses those days a little. The dirty secrets. Now we tell the stories here, usually within a week or two. You can listen if you're in between weekends. Or go make your own.
If you have a Tuesday Talks question, email theswingnation@gmail.com or call or text 972-302-7716. Video and audio files work too. We could use some voicemails. We haven't heard anybody's voice in a while.
In a world full of apples, be the pineapple.