Now we should make one thing clear, straight out of the gate - we’re not about to pronounce the death of the Big Night Out.

We’re still in love with dancefloors, squishing into booth seating and finding a friend for life in the queue for the bathroom. That being said, we’re also very familiar with the following scene…

It’s 9pm on a Tuesday. One friend has an anxious eye on live train times while another is making apologies about a morning yoga class. Meanwhile, your head is thumping thanks to the pounding bass inexplicably pumping from the restaurant speakers.

You decide to call it a night and make noises about pencilling a date in again soon, no doubt in over a calendar month’s time when schedules somehow align again in some fortuitous mercury in retrograde situation.

That’s the kind of night out we’re over. Which is why it should come as no big surprise that many of us are starting to reconfigure our socialising in search of more meaningful moments of fun with friends.

In fact, major bar group honchos have declared ‘3pm the new 9pm’, as many of us start to centre our weekend get-togethers around daytime meets, rather than always waiting for the sun to go down.

“Over the past few decades, women’s attitudes toward friendship have evolved,” says psychologist Dr Ravi Gill by way of explanation. “Add a pandemic into the mix, and we have a mindset shift around how we view our friendships.

“Women increasingly seek meaningful, emotionally supportive friends over surface-level connections.”

More intentional hangouts are becoming the priority, which sometimes requires a shake up of the traditional social framework.

Is 3pm the new 9pm? Why 2025 is the year we’re reclaiming our social lives