Why do I feel empty at night after coming home from a party?

Sandwich?

Or what do you mean by empty? What do expect to feel?

Maybe you just had so much fun and you are sad you have to leave and the party ended. You wish you could enjoy more.

@johnpowell “What do you expect to feel?”—A simple and powerful question actually. I guess I expect or wish to feel a little happier after any get-together with people. I usually feel like I got some superficial connections but nothing deep. I always want something more real, but never feel like I get it.

Brilliant minds wander off to fantastic realms of speculation and reflection. Sometimes these realms involve pondering deep thoughts of what should be done with all the emptiness in the world.

I say instead of pondering the emptiness, think about the fullness. Basically, roll your windows down and enjoy experiencing the drive home, the sights, the sounds, the smells… the present moment of it all. Throw a smile at something. You’ll find much fullness in reality. And upon that discovery, you’ll find that emptiness is a ghost invented by those who cannot see that the way to happiness is quite clear… practically invisible.

I think it’s because you have a lot of stimulation at the party, music, people, maybe dancing, and then you get home and are in a quiet room and—nothing. It’s the contrast. The coming down from the “hi” of the party. If you drank or did drugs it will just make it worse, I recommend staying away from both.

Focus on the good things. Getting into your comfy clothes, comfortable in your bed. Watch a favorite show on your DVR for half an hour, and then fall asleep.

I host two big parties per year. Some people stay for days. I am always a little sad when the last person leaves.

@lostinyoureyes – You answered your own question, I got some superficial connections but nothing deep. I always want something more real, but never feel like I get it. You’re looking for true connections, where a party, for most people, is about having fun in a “light” way. For them, it’s a chance to hang out and meet people.

What you’re looking for is to talk about meaningful things. Hard to do at a party. However, at the next one, see if there is anyone who is a little on the quiet side. Or, someone who tries to turn the direction of the conversation to something deeper. You may find the next party less of a let down.

May I ask, are you an introvert?

@lostinyoureyes You live alone? It’s natural to feel a bit lonely after being out with people and then coming home to an empty house.

@lostinyoureyes I just came across some other answers you gave on another thread. My first comment was too superficial. Possibly you aren’t connecting with other’s and it bugs you when you get home and think over the gathering? You mentioned SA, anyway you could work on that? I’m not sure how, but is that a possible angle? That’s kind of a lame answer but right now I don’t have a better one.

Parties can’t satisfy your longing. That’s just the nature of the longing and the nature of parties. The feeling of emptiness is your realization of all that. It just means you’re seeing the situation clearly.

Everybody has that non-specific longing at their core. Some people are acutely aware of it, for some it gnaws away under the radar. We interpret this longing as being a lack of something, and most people spend their lives trying to find what they can throw at the longing to fill the lack. Nothing works for long. At best, it may distract you from the longing for awhile, but the longing resurfaces when the distraction passes. There’s nothing wrong with parties. People need to relax and have fun. But they won’t do anything about the longing.

You “want something more real”, and that’s a pretty good way of describing what this longing feels like when it becomes a conscious presence in your life. It’s the nagging feeling that there’s something awry with our understanding of ourselves and the world, something about it all that we’re missing, a more real understanding that is elluding us.

I feel similarly after parties. Everyone is a little bit fucked up and at parties people both ahve their guard down and their guard up—they are both masquerading as the selves they want to be and revealing parts of themselves that people ordinarily don’t know about.

Everyone wants something, no one really has it. It’s perceptible, the edges of fascades, and those edges hurt when we see them. We walk home feeling like we were with a bunch of actors acting like normal people and it’s a bit jarring.