22 Aug 2019

You read it right. I can’t stand going out. I hate it. And honestly, I can’t believe that there aren’t more people like me out there (or maybe there are and we're just all suffering in incredibly loud, bass-heavy silence).

Am I missing something here? Sure, I get the appeal of drinking to loosen up, but the rest of the process seems pretty unappealing to me. 

Like when I go somewhere with my friends, I want to be able to actually talk to them. I don't want to be screaming at them over some blaring house beat that I don’t even like, only to understand every third word that they're yelling back.

That's if I can even find my friends; I swear as soon as any group gets into a club, it immediately scatters. After lining up for twenty minutes to get inside, some will run straight to the bathroom and join another line there. Others will enter the even longer queue at the bar and compete for an overpriced drink. Some start scream-talking to strangers which means you probably won’t see them again for the rest of the night. The rest just try to find somewhere to stand, because no doubt all the seats have been taken.

And to the people who claim that they love to dance – how often do you actually get to dance when you’re on a DF? More often than not you’re crammed into a small space in front of a bored-looking DJ, trying to create enough room for yourself to just bob up and down a bit. Is that really dancing?

Don't get me wrong; I don’t mind a tipple, but I’ve never understood the appeal of getting absolutely trashed. You can’t think straight, you can’t speak straight, when you do speak you say things that you shouldn’t and more often than not you end up making a complete fool of yourself.

When I speak to my friends on a Sunday morning, half the time they don’t remember anything about the night before. All they have is their bank records and it appears that they just spent $200 for some memory loss and a bad hangover. But still, they tell me that they’re “sure they had fun”.

And don’t tell me that you need to go out to a club to meet people. You can't hear in a club, which means you can’t really get to know anyone in that kind of environment. You can't gauge their sense of humour, or have a real conversation. 

For me, I always have the most fun at pre-drinks and a lot of my friends agree they do too. At pres, you're can chat to your mates and have a good time, all while the music is set to a reasonable volume (with tunes you actually like). No one's completely wasted, so no one's picked a fight yet or tripped over and rolled their ankle. You can introduce yourself to friends-of-friends and actually ask them questions about their life. You can play drinking games and have a laugh and even dance like an idiot in the living room with all the space you need. 

Why can't this be the big event for the night? Why can't we all just agree to skip the clubbing part and just keep the drinks with friends going at home? It would save our wallets, our ears and our dignities.