There's a moment in most bar nights when the room peaks — not the loudest moment, not the latest, but the one where everything is still working. The conversation is easy, the drink in front of you tastes right, and you're not scanning for anything. That moment passes, and most people don't notice until twenty minutes after it's gone.
The signs are modest. The bartender has stopped making eye contact between rounds. The music has climbed two notches and the room has thinned or, alternatively, packed in a different, younger direction. Your glass keeps getting refilled before you've decided you wanted more. None of these things mean you're being pushed out — they mean the room is shifting into a different gear, one that wasn't built for you.
There's a distinction worth making: a bar telling you to leave and you deciding to. Last call is a management instruction; leaving before last call is an exercise of judgment. The latter is nearly always the better night. Getting home with enough of the evening intact to remember it clearly is, in most cases, the thing you actually wanted.
The case for going before you have to rests on one idea: leave the room while you still like it. A bar you exit at the right moment is one you'll want to come back to. A bar you stay in past its own peak — and past yours — leaves a faint residue of diminishment that has nothing to do with the place.
So the question isn't whether you're enjoying yourself right now. It's whether you'd enjoy yourself more in twenty minutes. If the answer requires real thought, you probably already know it.