Dance fever

It was bank holiday Sunday and town was heaving. I was only going to have a few quiet drinks with friends, but the atmosphere was great and we continued to several bars. After a while, we decided to go to The Royal, a club with a couple of dance rooms. It was a one-in-one-out scenario by the time we got there, so it was a forty minute wait. Three drunken women in their thirties scraped their way along the wall to jump the queue, thinking themselves really clever. I don't think they realised exactly how long they'd have to wait though, because after a few minutes they sheepishly walked back to join their friends. I guess people can only be glared at for so long before buckling under the pressure.

The few staff in the club were running around trying to do every job in a hurry, including taking people's coats, collecting glasses and serving drinks at the bar. It was manic.

I was totally in the mood for dancing and was itching to get my groove on. It was nice to stand by the bar to chat with friends and get to know a couple of friends-of-friends, but I found myself waiting there while the others took it in turns to go to the toilet or out for a cigarette. It got a bit tedious because no one wanted to dance. Being a brave kinda guy, I decided to go and dance on my own. Now, the aforementioned idea works well in theory, but I've realised a few minor issues when attempting the dancing-on-your-own thing...

Mostly, other people are having a good time too and don't really notice another person getting down on the dance floor. But then there are a few people who do notice and react in varying ways. For instance, a couple of guys came up to me and jabbered at me about dancing on my own.

Lone dancing is often tricky during a busy night, because there's no one to face, and that means you're bound to end up dancing behind someone. I found myself in such a position with three girls. One of them started dancing backwards, nearly treading on my feet. I thought initially that she just needed more room to groove and that I was in the way, but then I saw her friends guiding her towards me and winking. She kept checking behind her to see where I was before taking another step. If a guy were to dance up to a girl like that, she'd push him away, thinking he was rude or too drunk to know where he was, so why can girls get away with it?!

I've found myself in this position a few times before. It's happened when I've had a girlfriend, which, being a loyal kinda guy, meant I had to avoid all contact with the incoming girl completely or make a semi-insane face to put her off. Other times, like on this occasion, I've been single and vaguely open to such things. I love dancing with girls face-to-face, but when they're dancing backwards at me it's a whole different thing. Sometimes they obviously try to get my attention by glancing over their shoulder and doing that flicky thing with their eyelashes. That makes it easier to know what they want and have a great dance with them. But, they run a mile if you initiate a dance before they've done their whole dance-introduction thing. Also, if you don't signal interest in dancing with them when they want or expect it, they think you're not interested, get disheartened and go off to the toilets to be consoled by their girlfriends.

To cut a long story short, having paid good money to get in the club, I just wanted to have a great dance and couldn't even pretend to be bothered about playing complex dancefloor girl games. If a girl makes less than half the effort, there's no point.

My friends were still around the bar or outside having a cigarette and I couldn't convince any of them to come have a boogie. I got talking to a girl at the cloakroom, while waiting ages to get someone to take my coat. She insisted I dance with her and her friends, which was nice. It's rare to meet people in clubs who just like to have a dance and a laugh, without all the cattle market shenanigans that often get irritating.

After finally having a good old boogie, I thought it was about time to leave, so I went to get my coat from the cloakroom. I was ignored by various members of staff while trying to get their attention, probably because they were overly busy and stressed by the bank holiday madness. After fifteen minutes, with no staff in sight, I decided to go in the back room and get my coat myself. A girl in a skimpy black dress followed me in there, saying she was looking for her coat too. The second the door closed she kissed me full on the lips, thanked me for the aforementioned kiss, said goodbye and walked off. Cheeky. If I did that to a girl, I'd get slapped!

It's lucky I was single when that random girl decided to kiss me, because there's no excuse for cheating (which is what I'd consider a kiss like that to be) and I would have had to stop her in her tracks. People are so quick to blame their actions on alcohol, as if it bypasses their moral code, or maybe their moral code is just rubbish, either way. I'll write more about my views on loyalty in a relationship in another blog when I'm actually in a relationship :)

It took me a while to walk home because I kept seeing people I knew, all of whom wanted me to go clubbing with them. If they'd been out earlier I would have gone along, but by that point I was knackered and had run out of money. Not a bad night really. I got a random kiss, so I can't complain.
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