Sober in a Club? No, no, no. A X M

I've never made it a secret; I'm not a fan of clubs - and I likely never will fully embrace them. But since shipping myself to Glasgow, I've had no choice but to embark on the wild, overcrowded (and occasionally overpriced) club lifestyle. Adapt to survive, that sorta thing.

Failing to do so would have likely resulted in the drastic decline of my social life; however, my kidneys and liver would most definitely hand-deliver me a glorious bouquet of flowers and a thank you card that reeked of dialysis-free gratitude.

There is no way I could hack sobriety in a club.

How many people really endure a club for any given length of time sober? Not many. And here's why. Clubs are essentially horrible, concrete slaps of money and presentation designed to appeal squarely to absolute wankers. Communication is near impossible unless you're adept in sign language. You're guaranteed to loathe 60% of the music; not to mention they're overcrowded, causing you to sweat more than a miner. The vomit inspiring tang of B.O and sweat rapes the opening of your nostrils, causing one volcanic heave after another.  In order to get to the bar, which the entire populous of the club has now adopted as their own, personal Mecca, you have to wade through a dance-floor rammed full of whooping twats who appear infinitely ruder than anyone you've ever met, including the person that just bumped into you 10 seconds ago. 

Muscled-up body-fascist lunkheads loudly bellow slurred chat-up lines at drunken, tango-coloured girls, whilst you try and sheepishly signal to the barman that you would like a diet Coke. However, with all the pre-fornicating ruckus caused by the Beefcakes and Wotsit-Barbies, the barman mishears you and promptly serve you a vodka + diet Coke instead.

Somewhat disheartened, you steer through the packed club, attempting to pick your friends' drunken faces out of the crowd to no avail. By this time you're nearing breaking point. Everyones face slowly morphs into a pair of spectacularly ugly testicles. You start creating scenarios in your head that would be infinitely more appealing than sobriety in a club. Eventually you cave and proceed to down the vodka and diet Coke in your hand, and the world begins to look like a slightly more tolerable place.

Earlier today, whilst I was casually scrolling through my news feed on Facebook, I noticed that there was a lot of hub-bub amongst the homosexuals. There is a new gay club opening up this Thursday in Glasgow called AXM. It's essentially the illegitimate, bastard sibling of the infamously popular Manchester award-winning club/bar on Canal Street.

As I kept scrolling,  I noticed countless amounts of hysterically excited  homosexuals flailing about on my news feed, harping on about the grand opening of AXM and inquiring about which of their homosexual brethren were attending. I counted 17 posts, all within two-three posts of each other, all more-or-less asking the same thing.

I don't know what it is about gays...I hate them?  Well, no, that's harsh. My best friends gay. I like him. Rather fond of myself too, but it was just the vacuous bombardment of copy+paste posting that really sent me on a frenzy. It was like someone had announced the second coming of Christ at Mass; Agh, donate more! Someone go on a wine run. Jesus is back, hide the nails! All I could see was AXM, AXM, AXM spat across my screen.  I thought I was in some weird, queer version of The Shining. AXM AXM redrum redrum, AXM.

I'm just not excited about it opening, or any other club for that matter. And by stating this I fear I'll be on the receiving end of some kind of point and giggle-shittery,  dished out by fellow club attendees & homos.

Maybe it's me (and lets face it, it likely is) that has the problem. After all, look how many people flock to various clubs at least twice a week. Chances are it's me, I'm just socially inept. Maybe it stems from the fact I'm from East Fife, the Narnia of Scotland. Or maybe it's my dislike of dancing; I put minimum effort into the awkward shuffle that is my one dance step. Either way, if you want to take me to a club I'll need to be intoxicated.

SEX NUDE RIHANNA BIEBER 9/11 FRANKIE COCOZZA

Okay, so I’ve lowered myself to using attention-grabbing keywords but whatever; it’s now standard practice.

“Search engine optimisation” is what it’s called. It really is the only way to generate a lot of traffic and steer attention towards your blog/website these days and, let’s face it, you have to pull out all the stops these days to be noticed on Internet Lane.

Seriously, ask yourself this: How many times have you written a blog, status or rant and posted it thinking, proudly, “that’s really good” or “this post is astounding; step back, readers. You’re about to be cut with some razor-sharp wit” only to then have your beautiful, wordy offspring beaten down by some irksome, dictionary ignorant ‘Facebook friend’ whose post of “OMG Jessie J is soooo good” has racked up at least 60 likes; all the while your well-thought post struggles like a fat, wheezing child to stagger past the 10 likes mark. 

Ever experienced this? Or maybe you’re a part of the illiterate hoard of miscreants that pollute Facebook and Twitter with pointless, mind numbing posts? If you’re a member of the latter, I implore you to take an axe to one of your poison-spreading fingers and, whenever you feel the uncontrollable need to post something similar to the above, promptly chop one off. Eventually you’ll learn to stop clogging up our News Feeds with irrelevant waffle, whilst doing me and millions of others a massive favour.

You can imagine my dismay when I finally got online today, and was greeted with only four notifications, where other users were hitting the 60 and 70 mark on the ‘like’ scale. You see, I suffered a terrible grievance this week as my laptop exploded. It’s not comic exaggeration, it actually made several farting sounds and went ‘boom’. What’s worse is I woke up this morning with a bitch of a fever; sweating profusely. I’m on the cusp of hallucinating.  

Being cut off from the internet is horrendous. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Smartphones and laptops now have the same significance as a crack pipe – the sole things that provide five minutes of relief. I can confidently report that being disconnected from social media sites is far, far worse than international terrorism and child abuse combined.  

I’m like a blinded orphan; helplessly wondering the cold, lonely, filth-laden streets; trying desperately to find someone to interact with. Only my quest is ultimately pointless, as I never find anyone. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve tried the logical remedies; I’ve read, studied, even cleaned but I fear I’m going feral. Staggering in a fragmented haze of confusion around my flat, slapping the walls and howling like a rabid wolverine.

Internet withdrawal combined my feverish symptoms has left me paranoid and with Pete Doherty-gone-cold turkey coke-jitters.  Before I know it I’ll be slavishly obeying every command a 12-foot tall transvestite ballet dancer barks at me: “Dance, beloved homosexual. Miss two steps and I take your kneecaps. Miss four and it’s your head. Dance, dance! Stop weeping and dance!”

The general public serious underplay the horror that is being cut off from the internet.