Using up energy singing karaoke

Dutch courage. According to the dictionary on my computer, it means the strength or confidence gained from drinking alcohol. I'm not too proud to say that I have used Dutch courage at various stages in my life to get over some nervousness at meeting new people or just to make being in a room with a lot of people more palatable. (Well, that is what I thought at that time anyway.)

The other day I was out with a few people celebrating the end of our season and we went to karaoke. I haven't been to karaoke for a long time and I felt out of practice but it was fun and I have learnt through experience that you should always pick songs that everyone knows and likes because if you only pick songs that you know it can be a very long three to five minutes. (Unfortunately I forgot that rule a couple of times.)

(For those of you who don't read Japanese, that bottle is something we got for free from the karaoke bar, it's called 'Karaoke voice drink.' Not sure if it is meant to make your voice better or stop you from getting a hangover. Unfortunately it did neither.)

What I noticed the other night was that the people around me were on a real high. Of course I thought that they were all drunk and because I had arrived late I thought that they had imbibed an obscene amount of beer.

A couple of people may have done that but I'm pretty sure they were just high on life and why is that? They were in a group and they were feeding of the energy that being in group does for some people. For me it was tiring and when most of the people were carrying on to the next place after the karaoke finished I knew that I had to go home as I was running on fumes at that stage. My energy was running low and I said my good nights.

That is the secret for people that may be introverted but still like going out on the town from time to time. By all means, get out there. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Drink heaps. But know when your energy stocks are getting low and when you have to leave and just leave. Don't come out with a big long explanation, just say that you going because the more you stand around the more that the group will convince you to stay and if your energy is low it will turn into hell. Trust me on this, I know this from experience.

Do go out and have fun. Don't over do it. Do leave when you want to. Don't let people talk you from going home. Be strong. After about five minutes they will have forgotten that you were there anyway.