Guy Lloyd is loving his ‘mid-life crisis’

Regression session

So I have more great news on my mid-life crisis, which, thankfully, shows no signs of ending just yet. I mean what would be the alternative? Get old and plan retirement? That seems like the next obvious stage but I’m not dead yet.

And what’s so ‘critical’ about the mid-life? I’m loving it. Anyway, more on that later. Let me explain my random outburst.

I went clubbing at the weekend. Not to one of those cool thirty-something intimate clubs, where middle-class Hove reminisces about Madchester. No, I went to a proper club, like a super club. Those big, scary places we grow out of in our twenties. It was Pryzm (sounds like ‘Prison’, when you say it quickly) and more impressively, it was Przym on West Street. Yes, I ventured into the no-go zone for Brightonains. And I did so with attitude and swagger.

I feed off their youthful energy and suck it dry for myself

It was a work night out, so it helps to work with colleagues in their twenties, as I feed off their youthful energy and suck it dry for myself. What was even more impressive and a personal highlight for me was that I was asked for ID on the way in and I was chatted up by woman who guessed my age as 32 (I’m 45). Immediately, this took ten years off my mental state. I was ready. I was going in and I was going in hard.

I love clubbing and I love parties. I remember going to my first one at the age of fourteen or fifteen and thinking, ‘this is bloody ace’. From the age of fifteen, I was organising parties in the local village hall for everyone at school and from the age of eighteen, up until currently, I have organised a big annual birthday party every December.

I not only love organising and attending parties – the other reason it’s been such a big part of my life is that I’m bloody good at it. If there was a job to party professionally (is this what Liz Hurley does?), I would be at the top of my game. I love parties. I love socialising, I love dancing and I love having fun. I’ve met nearly all my best friends at pubs and parties and I met my wife at a house party, on the other side of the world – in Sydney – back in 1997.

Anyway, back to Pryzm. I probably danced far too enthusiastically to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’, I did the Disco and the R‘n’B room (scary) and I out-danced most of the younger folk from work, finishing up at 5.30am. I also went to work the next day.

This ‘mid-life crisis’ started in my early thirties and I hope it lasts forever.

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