Have You Tried the Uncivilized Friday Happy Hour?
we're all just animals at the end of the week.
Even the most authentic among us wears a mask to a certain extent.
By the time Friday afternoon rolls around we’ve told so many white lies and had our fair share of “death by a thousand cuts” bureaucratic nonsense that it makes our skin itch.
Perhaps I’m hypersensitive to this because I’m overly allergic to it.
If you read me, you are probably in the same boat.
Yes, empathy is so important, we speak of it often.
That being said, human nature is human nature!
This is very much an ersatz TikTok “put a finger down” challenge, but if you’ve done none of these things this week, you’re either a robot or lying:
Sent something along the lines of “Happy to help, let me know if you need anything else!” while thinking “how tf did you need help with this?”
Adhered to a completely arbitrary rule just to not rock the boat.
(For me this came in the form of a pink notice pinned to my garbage can that the bins “must be approx 1.5-2 feet off the curb to be collected” ????)
“Sounds good!” or “I’ll keep you posted!” to plans you have zero intention of showing up to.
Used corporate jargon you’d never actually use amongst friends.
Filled out some form whose information is already available in the three other forms you filled out.
Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought.
Welcome to the Uncivilized Friday Happy Hour
It’s where we like to remind ourselves that we’re living, breathing, vital mammals that were bred with the intent to explore, prosper, and reproduce.
I toyed with the idea of calling it A Fellowship Program for the Spiritually Neutered, but that was A. a little dramatic and B. I don’t think most of us are that far gone.
(Some definitely are.)
The premise is incredibly simple:
Just do what you were going to already do leisure-wise, with a notable absence:
Leave the metric spreadsheet timekeeping etc energy at home.
Shocker, shocker- my UFHH takes place at the gym.
But this isn’t some “85% of my 1RM x 4” type session.
It’s entirely based on intuition and flow, and ridiculously simple:
Load up on pink sea salt and raw honey
Queue up a very random, very fun playlist
(you still have to warm up properly lol)
Go until you see that cool squiggly vein cluster in your shoulder and you can trace it down your arm into your wrist.
Metrics, timed rest periods, any of that be damned.
If I’m not smiling and elated after and an Andrew Huberman type would look at a log of the session like “what even is this?!”, I did it wrong.
That’s just my example, doesn’t have to be yours.
I know running is big these days.
So go do that- but go with the intent of freedom, with experimentation.
There’s not going to be a cute Strava recap screenshot after this one, that’s the whole idea.
This doesn’t even have to be physical!
Wail on the guitar until your neighbors complain.
Whip up a new recipe off the dome- if you screw it up royally, so what?
Order a pizza and laugh it off.
If you don’t?
Congratulations, you have a new meal and it’s entirely your own.
The Cage Compounds, and the Three Golden Rules
Take any more than 5 minutes on any social media platform and you’ll see these common refrains from guys and girls:
“Where are the guys who act like MEN?!”
“Everything socially is so…blah”
“I just wanna go on a date without dealing with neuroticism”
These are all second and third order effects from long term stays in what I call “The Cage”.
Playing the game professionally (we all have to do it), social niceties, “keeping up appearances”…at the end of the day, too much of this compounds and you become a shell of yourself.
I’m not above it, please don’t think for a second I am.
Now and again, a Snapchat memory pops up and the ensuing jump scare always shakes me to my core.
Deviation from the path of aliveness is scary not just because of the effects, but because of how easy it can creep up on you.
Dw, your slightly unhinged Friday happy hour is the antidote to becoming a woman who is losing what she loves about herself, or a guy who is becoming what’s been dubbed (love this term) as a “Grey Man”.
That’s enough yapping out of me for today.
So go ahead, do what you got to do.
Build some callouses on your hands, get lost on the running trail, get paint stains on your shirt or discover a new chord progression or start a Substack (I’ll subscribe!), whatever it may be.
Just don’t get sucked into the Grey Man’s Vortex of streaming services, food delivery, and drained life force.
Lastly…I almost forgot the three rules of all this:
Don’t end up in the ER or central booking (you’ll be there all weekend!)
Be able to wake up Saturday fully functional
Don’t emotionally or physically hurt anybody else in the process*
(* If your Friday release is heavy sparring, it happens, they knew the risk, life goes on..)
Ideally you wake up Saturday morning glowing with a revived sense of self.
You might stick out like a sore thumb in your daily routine as a result.
….That’s sort of the whole point.
😊
See you Sunday.
-John Abbate
6.5.2026