It started with an espresso martini and a half-joke: “Let’s be reckless and go home by eleven.” My friend Nadine clinked her glass against mine at a candlelit speakeasy in Duxton Hill, and we both laughed—softly, of course.

These days, that’s as wild as our nights get.

Not long ago, we were the girls who danced until 3 a.m., who flirted our way into VIP booths at Zouk, who staggered into 7-Eleven for isotonic drinks and greasy buns before collapsing into someone’s spare mattress. Our WhatsApp group was a montage of blurry neon, wrist stamps, and next-morning regrets. Now? We send each other voice notes about breathwork classes, share links to low-ABV wines, and plan “quiet hangs” that begin with oat milk negronis and end with silk eye masks.

We’re 27, give or take. We still live in Singapore. But something has shifted.

We call them soft nights—evenings that glow instead of blaze. Think: golden cocktails under amber lights. Thoughtful catch-ups over artfully plated bar snacks. Leaving a party not because we’re bored, but because we’re full. Of conversation. Of connection. Of just enough.

There’s No One Left at the Club

I first noticed the shift last year. Clubbing felt like a job interview—awkward small talk, dress codes, too many people trying to be seen. We were tired of paying $30 cover just to scream over remixes and scroll TikTok in the bathroom. The dopamine wasn’t hitting anymore. We wanted slower. Quieter. Gentler.

When I asked my friend Amirah why she stopped going out, she said, “I want nights that make me feel something, not escape something.” Another friend, Jamie, joked, “If I’m already drained from work, why would I pay to be overstimulated?”

Burnout is a shared language among us. Long hours in finance, UX, law, or marketing—jobs that pay well but cost plenty. For Gen Z in a high-achieving city, the hustle is baked into our identities. A soft night is rebellion without fanfare. It says: I deserve to rest, but also to glow.

A Different Kind of Intimacy

Soft nights are also more emotionally available. There’s space to talk. Really talk. I’ve had some of the most tender conversations of my adult life seated on velvet couches with a friend’s knee touching mine, our drinks forgotten, discussing therapy, dead pets, and the weird quiet of our late twenties.

They’re dates, too. Not swipe-fueled chaos, but real ones—where no one’s pretending they love techno. Where someone might order you a second drink because you mentioned loving rosemary. Where things end with a chaste kiss and a text that says: “Let’s do this again, softly.”

From Rage to Ritual

We don’t rage anymore. We ritualize. We choose venues with good lighting and better playlists. We try spritzes made with seaweed gin and ice cubes shaped like koi fish. Some of us journal after, or put on lavender oil and watch old Wong Kar-wai films.

For my birthday last month, I hosted a “night in” with a dress code: silk and sincerity. We drank low-sugar cocktails and passed around a question jar. At 10:45 p.m., someone whispered, “Should we do last rounds?” and it felt decadent—like asking for dessert.

Soft doesn’t mean boring. It means being awake to your own life. It’s pleasure with intention, with boundaries, with grace.

The Glow Down

In a city obsessed with achievement, we’re finding freedom in the gentle. My generation is fluent in burnout, so we’ve built a new language of leisure: one that doesn’t punish the body or mute the mind. And when we say we’re staying in or leaving early, it’s not because we’ve grown old. It’s because we’ve grown wise.

I still wear glitter on my eyelids. I still love a killer playlist. But I also love being able to hear myself think—and hear the people I love think, too.

So, yes: we’ll toast to our promotions, breakups, breakthroughs. But we’ll do it by 9:30. And we’ll be in bed, warm and clean, by eleven.

By Clara Lim | Singapore