Sober Clubbing
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Clubs were of course designed for three things, the trinity of drinking, dancing and looking for a sexual partner. They are not completely linked. It is possible to simply go a club and drink. It is also probably possible to simply go to a club and drink and dance. Similarly it is also possibly to go to a club and drink and find a sexual partner. It is simply not possible to go to a club, not drink, and have the other two. A lack of drink will probably mean you will feel a bit tired and you wont see the point in dancing. Also, unless you are on some other substance your sex drive will be zero and you will eventually end up sitting on the edge of the dance floor, trying to look cool but really sweating.
And you will be sweating everywhere. Your Jeans, your T-shirt, and your Jacket will all be wet with the salty liquid, soggy, and in this environment, there will be no clear way of drying yourself out in this atmosphere, humid and steamy. The bench you are sitting on at the edge of this makeshift dance floor will be low and uncomfortable. Although your knees are high above your head, you will still manage to tap in time with the drum-ridden rubbish that was being played; or that is how you feel by now. And although not a drink had passed your lips all night, you wont be able to think straight. You will be tired, excited and jealous all at the same time.
Your alone, but others wont be, and because you are not drunk you notice the depressing details. Next to you, a weedy guy with national health glasses will be comparing tongue length with some half-burnt out blonde. His eyes are closed, as though he does not want to realise that she is only kissing him between sips of lager and puffs of an ash hanging cigarette, both of which she holds with the hand that does not making the lonely dance under the t-shirt of her stand for the evening. You wonder why he could not do any better. It is a compelling sight.
There will be a moment, a single moment in the night were you think you might be able to swing at least the items from the clubbing list. At your other side, away from the now torrid tonsil twins, sits a girl, with long red hair wearing a large floppy maroon hat, and will seem as bored as you as she glanced at her watch. You will ask her the time, she will tell you its close to midnight, and then try top fill the silences. She will tell you that this was her celebration after her graduation, and that the friend that she had come with had disappeared into the crowd with an ex-boyfriend. She is very pretty and in your heart you will want to make the bench symmetrical by copying the work of the two at the other side, but you realise, well, its not going to happen. Your Englishness makes you think better of striking up a conversation, the idea of screaming some half-hearted questions about how boring your lives are is not very appealing. You continued to sit and sweat.
Cigarette smoke wafts through the air, mixing with the fibres of your clothing. You think of the launderette visit, which will follow on the Monday, and the owner, who sits in the shadows, making dribbling noises occasionally. Unknown to you, the girl you just failed to get off with has also been there once and a faulty machine has eaten her favourite leggings. Which why she was wearing those odd ones tonight - pink and black, green and yellow, they clashing desperately, but working - somehow.
She gets up and disappears into the dancing mass, as do your other friends, still joined at the mouth. You begin to fell bitter. You wait hopefully for the Metal music, which will never come. You can Mosh very well, but anything is better than this hell on vinyl which is making your heart beat irregularly. You cross your legs, close your eyes and place you head on the back wall. You are going to have to ride this one out.
When you opened them, you have the epiphany moment, which comes with nights like these. Time seems to have stopped, all movement being held stationary, apart from one thing. Just in front of, glazed in blue light, dances an apparition. She has quite short - shoulder length brown hair. A stripy-blue tank top extenuates a ... generous figure. Her body seems to become the source of the music, not just ebbing and flowing with it. Nothing about her is that different from her fellow dancers. Though you are all too aware of her, she is only aware of the music - her feet sliding her across the dance floor, until the world she lives in is eclipsed by party light.
You feel uncomfortable and excited. You know you are staring, but your eyes wont leave her. What is she thinking? What memories were hidden under that hair which hovers her head and is rapidly covering her whole face. You ran your fingers through your hair and she repeats the action, the strands disappearing behind her shoulders.
The drums end, the synthesisers die. Time began again. The small pocket of reality she occupied that you had invaded disappears. She smiles at some at some friends at the other side of the hall and disappears into the crowd. You smiled broadly and stand up the moment lost but strangely, something gained. You rejoin your friends, who are crashing into each other drunkenly on the other side of the club. You try to join in, but only half-heartedly. And you realise, that had you been drinking, you might have missed all this, and never have remembered it in the morning.
And you will be sweating everywhere. Your Jeans, your T-shirt, and your Jacket will all be wet with the salty liquid, soggy, and in this environment, there will be no clear way of drying yourself out in this atmosphere, humid and steamy. The bench you are sitting on at the edge of this makeshift dance floor will be low and uncomfortable. Although your knees are high above your head, you will still manage to tap in time with the drum-ridden rubbish that was being played; or that is how you feel by now. And although not a drink had passed your lips all night, you wont be able to think straight. You will be tired, excited and jealous all at the same time.
Your alone, but others wont be, and because you are not drunk you notice the depressing details. Next to you, a weedy guy with national health glasses will be comparing tongue length with some half-burnt out blonde. His eyes are closed, as though he does not want to realise that she is only kissing him between sips of lager and puffs of an ash hanging cigarette, both of which she holds with the hand that does not making the lonely dance under the t-shirt of her stand for the evening. You wonder why he could not do any better. It is a compelling sight.
There will be a moment, a single moment in the night were you think you might be able to swing at least the items from the clubbing list. At your other side, away from the now torrid tonsil twins, sits a girl, with long red hair wearing a large floppy maroon hat, and will seem as bored as you as she glanced at her watch. You will ask her the time, she will tell you its close to midnight, and then try top fill the silences. She will tell you that this was her celebration after her graduation, and that the friend that she had come with had disappeared into the crowd with an ex-boyfriend. She is very pretty and in your heart you will want to make the bench symmetrical by copying the work of the two at the other side, but you realise, well, its not going to happen. Your Englishness makes you think better of striking up a conversation, the idea of screaming some half-hearted questions about how boring your lives are is not very appealing. You continued to sit and sweat.
Cigarette smoke wafts through the air, mixing with the fibres of your clothing. You think of the launderette visit, which will follow on the Monday, and the owner, who sits in the shadows, making dribbling noises occasionally. Unknown to you, the girl you just failed to get off with has also been there once and a faulty machine has eaten her favourite leggings. Which why she was wearing those odd ones tonight - pink and black, green and yellow, they clashing desperately, but working - somehow.
She gets up and disappears into the dancing mass, as do your other friends, still joined at the mouth. You begin to fell bitter. You wait hopefully for the Metal music, which will never come. You can Mosh very well, but anything is better than this hell on vinyl which is making your heart beat irregularly. You cross your legs, close your eyes and place you head on the back wall. You are going to have to ride this one out.
When you opened them, you have the epiphany moment, which comes with nights like these. Time seems to have stopped, all movement being held stationary, apart from one thing. Just in front of, glazed in blue light, dances an apparition. She has quite short - shoulder length brown hair. A stripy-blue tank top extenuates a ... generous figure. Her body seems to become the source of the music, not just ebbing and flowing with it. Nothing about her is that different from her fellow dancers. Though you are all too aware of her, she is only aware of the music - her feet sliding her across the dance floor, until the world she lives in is eclipsed by party light.
You feel uncomfortable and excited. You know you are staring, but your eyes wont leave her. What is she thinking? What memories were hidden under that hair which hovers her head and is rapidly covering her whole face. You ran your fingers through your hair and she repeats the action, the strands disappearing behind her shoulders.
The drums end, the synthesisers die. Time began again. The small pocket of reality she occupied that you had invaded disappears. She smiles at some at some friends at the other side of the hall and disappears into the crowd. You smiled broadly and stand up the moment lost but strangely, something gained. You rejoin your friends, who are crashing into each other drunkenly on the other side of the club. You try to join in, but only half-heartedly. And you realise, that had you been drinking, you might have missed all this, and never have remembered it in the morning.
