The Afterhour-so goes the perfect end to a weekend

You know the dilemma: After visiting the club, you don’t feel like going to sleep (and for various reasons you probably couldn’t anyway), so you move on to come down to a buddy’s place with some friends. This can be the relaxed end to a good night’s sleep-or a torturous morning. To make sure it’s not a horrible experience, we’ve put together some useful tips for you. So don’t say you didn’t know better afterward.

The first rule for an after-hour: Tell only a small group of people about the after-hour

There’s always this one strange guy who somehow managed to get you and your friends in the large cab on the way to your friend’s house at seven in the morning. This is all your fault. If there is the prospect of an after-hour, keep it to yourself, because it is a fragile affair where people sometimes interact socially, but mostly just get off together from the pills and/or drinks they took two hours before. If you do this not only with close friends, it will be a frightening and disturbing experience for everyone. That strange guy won’t be one of them and might steal your vaporizer and nobody wants that.

2. Prepare for an after-hour, even if you think you won’t land on anyone

Let’s talk about essentials: sunglasses, chewing gum, and deodorant. All these things are of course everyday necessities, but can even become life-savers. You’ll probably notice it when you’re at the club until nine in the morning, don’t want to go home, end up in someone’s backyard and then send pictures of you tipping a Bloody Mary to your friends. Take these essentials with you when you leave the house. You’ll thank me later.

3. All those strong opinions you have about trump and techno? Leave them at home

Just do it, please. Everybody operates on only two and a half brain cells, which will be gone after the next train, and nobody wants to hear anything else except: “This track bangs”, “I’ve ordered alcohol and it will be here in the next five minutes” or “I love you”. At Afterhours everybody loves everybody — some people just pretend to love everybody and some really-so don’t almost show up sober and try to start a discussion that requires an attention span of more than a few seconds. You’ll be hated forever. Especially when it comes to Trump or Markus Söder.

4. Don’t be greedy when it comes to after-hour delicacies

Joints, alcohol, and cigarettes must be shared. Afterhours is a bit like communism, only nicer. OK, I take that back, it’s not like communism at all. But if you want to have some of the cheap champagne when you crash together, you probably will, as long as you add a few euros and smile. Don’t be the person who takes advantage of the unstable state everyone is in. They may seem fragile, but the memory still works and they remember everything.

5. Now is not the time to brag about your obscure taste in music

People do things that don’t necessarily make sense even on their best days, but why someone would turn on Ginuwine with “pony” at 10 am after taking a load of ketamine five hours earlier is not clear to me either. But let the person go ahead. Nobody likes stinky boots, and if you insist on giving people a spontaneous Spotify or YouTube DJ set to “save the day”, then I can guarantee that you’ll get on somebody’s nerves and look like an idiot. If you can’t relax, go outside and smoke some weed, someone will have some. Or a cigarette will do. Just let people listen to their music, even if they have bad taste.

6. The first time you get the urge to go, get up and go

The hardest thing about an after hour is finding the right time to walk. The fear of missing something may have brought you to this place in the first place, but it also keeps you from getting up from the sofa, where you are surrounded by all those characters who haven’t slept for days. In the beginning, after hours are nice, but at some point, you just have to let it go. I once stayed at an after hour until one o’clock in the afternoon because someone said they ordered espresso martinis and that we should all stay and have the Sunday of our lives. We had fun for a while, but at some point, we ran out of booze, the sun crawled through the window and the conversations got tougher than our chewing gum. The espresso martinis never came. Get out while you still can… There’s gonna be another after-hour next week.