I went to a club about a week ago, and it was an interesting experience. As one could probably tell from the quantity of Good Wife articles I’ve written on this site, I’ve never actually been to one before, and a lot of my preconceptions were blown away. For one thing, a club feels like a sad to place at its core. I don’t mean that it makes you sad or that I was sad being there, but it feels like a place who’s essence is based on something more depressing than the music suggests. Another thing I noticed is that it’s basically impossible to have a conversation because of how loud the music is. I mean, I knew it’d be loud, but I didn’t realized you literally had to scream into someone’s ear for them to know what you’re saying. Because of the noise, most communication is done through body language and gestures, and this is key because you can read a lot more from a person’s behaviour than you normally would in a setting where you’re distracted by what they’re saying. Finally, as a friend said to me, people there are mostly just there to bone, which really contributed to the depressing vibe of the place overall.

I was with enough people to buffer the feeling of loneliness the club exudes, but I was able to see people that didn’t have that luxury. I made eye contact with one of them, another gangly young adult. I could instantly see the his night wasn’t going very well, so I started to watch him a little. He didn’t have any friends with him, and his main strategy seemed to be to hover around groups of women, hoping one of them would approach him. For the time I was there, no one did.

The dancing was also an interesting aspect to the environment of the club. From what I could see, there wasn’t enough room to dance in a way that could catch anyone’s attention, and most people were limited to upper body gyrations. I found myself partial to rhythmically hopping, the go-to technique for people that want to seem enthusiastic, but don’t want to risk humiliating themselves. Everyone’s close proximity, the fact that the music never stopped, and the fog of evaporated sweat that seemed so thick that I could almost taste it, made dancing feel like a work out.

The entire experience gave me a new understanding for why people got drunk. You’re not really conversing with anyone, you need to feel comfortable letting yourself go, but most importantly, you need to somehow combat the blackhole of solitude that lies at the heart of the clubbing experience. If you’re going at it alone, and your end goal is sex, alcohol is like a river in the desert. Something to parch your thirst in an infinite wasteland so you can keep up the strength to make it to the promised land (the promised land is sex).

My biggest takeaway from this is that Usher lied to us, going to a club is not at all like his hit song “Love In This Club”, but more like a sad cover of “Love In This Club”, with a tempo and composition that makes the lyrics take on more of an ironic twist. The whole experience was enjoyable, but it made me deeply appreciative of having people to share it with. When it comes to clubbing, no one should ever find themselves dancing on their own.*

* The song “Dancing on my Own” is also vaguely about clubbing, and it has a very famous sad cover version that 100% misses the point of the song, but that’s an article for another day.

Quote of the Day:

“Let me out! Let me out! This is not a dance! I’m begging for help, I’m screaming for help, please come let me out!”

Tiny Rick, Rick and Morty.