Loose Men on: Clubbing

Very few things on this earth deserve to be described as evil. In that category I’d probably only put Hitler, war criminals, despotic dictators and clubbing. Yeah, I said it. Clubbing is evil, and all men should agree. If you’re a male reading this and shaking your head, you’re only lying to yourself sir. Embrace the fear: ‘going out’ is any self-respecting young man’s worst nightmare.

I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing Evolve’s ‘notorious’ event last week. Quite how Evolve thinks it has a monopoly on notoriety is beyond me. Surely _any_ institution that sucks in young people, plies them with overpriced alcohol, polices them with the sort of bouncers that wouldn’t look out of place at the door of a Russian mafia meeting and then kicks them out again at 3am should be branded ‘notorious’.

Don’t get me wrong: I can understand why girls enjoy clubbing. They get to dress themselves up and dance with their friends. They get to take lovely pictures of themselves and enjoy the attention of fawning young men – though seemingly unaware that most of those checking them out are essentially lecherous perverts. Clubbing, in short, is a woman’s world. All men can look forward to about going clubbing is a prehistoric battle to be the alpha male who gets to take a girl home, scores of unflattering pictures and an empty wallet.

I don’t believe that men go clubbing for any reason other that they’re ‘boring’ if they don’t. That and the possibility that buying somebody enough alcohol might make them want to come home with them. In any case, men, you’re better off finding somebody nice and taking them out for a quiet drink – not buying them expensive vodka and then trying to rub your genitals against them. If we’re going to accept this method of attracting somebody as legitimate, we might as well give up all pretence of civilisation and go back to living in caves and beating the crap out of each other in an attempt to show who’s the best potential mate.

If you really, really have to go clubbing then get out as soon as is socially acceptable. I take this point to be at about the same time as everybody gets too drunk to realise you’re gone. Then head for the nearest fast food outlet and shovel down some ruinously unhealthy grease-coated ‘meat’. It will help numb the pain.

Don’t ever be tricked into believing that any evening’s clubbing will be any ‘different’. It doesn’t matter if the people you’re going with are lovely. Quite often they’re your best friends; there are better ways to spend time with them. Why not ask them to play a board game, or discuss fine art? Or just sit playing Fifa and grunting profanities until 3 am. Anything will do – just don’t degrade yourself by dancing like a drunken uncle at a wedding, trying to sing the words to songs you don’t know and making an arse of yourself.

You are better than that.