Ah, New Year’s Eve, that old FOMO incarnate. It’s the day where your worth as a human is gauged by where (and with whom) you end up at midnight (provided you last that long). My cherished memories of New Years’ past include: vomiting out the side of a moving cab, throwing myself at someone who had below-zero interest, cuddling up to an ex over a tallboy of Four Loko and one blessed year of no recollections at all, waking up on a stranger’s Tempur-pedic next to a box of cold Little Caesar’s, which became that day’s breakfast.
So, with the fated eve approaching and the palpable anticipation growing—making our best-laid plans for that singular instant when a ball drops in Times Square—we were moved to compile our most cautionary tales from past New Year’s celebrations, for your enjoyment, pity and maybe a roadmap for what to avoid. After all, if you can’t have a great New Year’s, you can at least avoid one of these fates.
The dancing queen
I got too drunk off a buddy’s flask of “mixed gins” and made a fool of myself at a Bushwick loft party. I initiated several unsuccessful dance-offs to techno songs, shouted a lot about the “Power of being a SINGLE WOMAN,” made out with someone of indeterminate everything on a very dark couch and finished the night by falling down three flights of stairs in a cocktail dress. I threw up/cried on the street until a good Samaritan put me in a cab, where I continued to throw up/cry out the window until I got home.
– Brittany Allen
Cold and alone in Quebec
When the clock struck twelve, I was wading through a mass of French Canadians in search of my friends along the St. Laurent, in below-zero weather. I didn’t find them.
– Camille Lawhead
Taxi cab of broken dreams
I planned to go to a boyfriend’s apartment but got stuck at a “discotheque” downtown where the music was bad and the crowd was worse. To top it off, I ran into a bitter enemy, made out with a 50-year old drummer, threw up and tried to clean up by putting on some red lipstick. I tried to get to my boyfriend’s by sharing a taxi with some bimbos from Long Island, but it broke down at midnight. When I finally made it to the guy’s apartment, I found him weeping in the shower. We broke up and smoked some pot.
– Kala Jerzy
Riding the Seoul train
I spent a New Year’s on a train with my parents halfway to Seoul. That was fucking terrible.
– Eric Silver
The wild goose chase
Around 1am, a girlfriend of a good friend couldn’t find the brand new iPhone she just got for Christmas, and convinced there no possible way she had misplaced it, caused a huge commotion claiming it had been stolen. She caused such a commotion that I turned the music off, stood on a chair, and announced to the party “IF ANYONE STOLE AN IPHONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE JUST BE COOL AND PUT IT BACK,” grinding the party to a temporary halt while people looked for the phone. The next two days were spent cleaning, being consistently surprised at how many places people managed to vomit: in my room (under a rug!), in the bathroom, on the floor, in corners and one particularly noodle-filled blast on the landing of my staircase. On the second day, still cleaning up, I found missing iPhone, on top of my refrigerator, where it had in fact been misplaced from the beginning.
– Tim Donnelly
Krying at karaoke
There are probably worse places to be on New Year’s than an empty karaoke bar in Koreatown where a woman was sings a sad, sappy ballad alone. I just haven’t been there. On top of that, I missed the free champagne, my friends were too drunk to notice how terrible the place was and I ended the night crying in a bathroom stall.
– Cat Wolinski
Teenage wasted
I’ve never had a bad New Year’s in the city, because in my mind, kissing a stranger and drunkenly falling down the stairs (last year’s highlight reel) are things to put in the “successful New Year’s” column. But it wasn’t always so easy. When I was sixteen, I went to a party and got shot down by a crush. I dealt with it by drinking. And drinking even more on top of that. Predictably, I lost my head. A lot of it is blurry, but I do remember trying to drink everything in sight, whether or not it belonged to me and moaning about how the world wasn’t fair. It got to the point where when I finally passed out under a table, my exasperated friends actually debated whether or not to roll me over on my stomach, in case I puked. Or at least that’s what they tell me. I resolved to not drink for a year, which remains the only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever made and kept in my life.
–David Colon
Got anything cringeworthy to add to the pot? Add your baddest and worstest New Year’s stories in the comments below, and let’s all pray that history doesn’t repeat itself as we ring in 2014.
Follow Sam for more cautionary tales at @ahoysamantha
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Looking at my story written out, I’m struck by something I never realized while telling it: my friends were a bunch of assholes. I should have made a resolution to get new ones instead of taking a year off from drinking.
These stories brightened up my mood on this dark, dreary day. Especially the one about the power of the single woman.
I don’t think I ever considered it a New Year’s Eve catastrophe, but I had gone to Australia for the Millennium and was drinking on the beach in Surfer’s Paradise, waiting for the countdown and fireworks. I got so drunk that I started digging holes in the sand next to me, vomiting in them, and then covering them back up. Like it was my litter box.
That is the farthest thing from a disaster, you damn braggart
Tops. Tops tops tops.
Somebody get this man the grand prize.
I was once in Orlando for New Year’s Eve. Orlando Florida.
Hahahahahahahahahhahaha, this is indeed the worst, I love it!
The New Year’s eve, after I finally sabotaged/realized I would never be with my college crush, I arranged to go out with my best friend to forget all about men. She ended up stranded upstate due to a snowstorm, so I went with a platonic male friend to a party, unbeknownst to me that we were crashing it. We ended up in the basement of a brownstone mansion in Brooklyn Heights, mixing as well as oil and water with the other partygoers. My platonic friend’s roommate proceeded to hit on me for the rest of the night, by telling me, “the best way to get over, ‘a nice Jewish boy’ was to get under a different one.” Because, apparently, that pick up line was supposed to work on me and didn’t, he took off with the car and left us stranded and searching for the subway after midnight. My friend threw him out a few weeks later, and I’ve sworn off New Years.
Hi Sam!!
This was hilarious so I thought I’d add.
My friends from home (ie pre-college) and I are all professional introverts so we thought the grandest of ideas was spending New Years at home watching Japanese crime dramas instead of going out and partying. I’m pretty sure some alcohol was involved but regardless, if you’ve ever seen enough of those you know that a lot of them are majorly fucked up and downright terrifying- even those aimed at teenagers and kids. Beyond gore, they are exceptional at creating suspense and I think I have the universe’s most over-active imagination so needless to say I couldn’t sleep the entire night, creating soul crushing waking nightmares in my head ceaselessly. To this day I have never had worse nightmares than that New Years Eve. Woo!
Last new years I did too many assorted drugs. This was not the problem, I had a great time until about 3:30am. I pretty much threw myself at the lead singer of the band performing that night and he just kept saying, “Maybe next time.” Eventually I made out with the bassist instead, and then got into a screaming fight with my roommate in the street, then I punched a park car. After that even the bassist didn’t want to go home with me :(