How not to pull in a gay club.

 - in which I wallow in self pity and realise I have the sexual allure of a horse.

What are the politics of pulling on a night out? Without a doubt there is some unwritten form of ‘night-out etiquette’ that we all sheepishly follow, but I am utterly bewildered when it comes to what the rules are. All I can say for sure is, undoubtedly, the method I tend to embrace doesn’t work.

I think it’s great that my love life is a shambles. Rather than gliding effortlessly through a staid, predictable love-quest full of honesty, commitment and earth-moving sex; I’m forced to lurch from one train wreck to another; constantly challenged by own romantic ineptitude.

So, to demonstrate what not to do when on the treasure hunt for a potential beau, I’ve decided to illustrate my antics on a night out as if they were a TV show.

 It would be a sort of romantic/thriller, in which the main character (that would be me) would be under constant threat, not from terrorists or the BNP, but from his self.  A typical episode would start with me being awoken from oversleeping, likely by an excited Jonathan bouncing off the walls – bottle of Rosé in one hand, camera in the other – singing “Milk, Milk, POLO, AXM” to the tune of Lady Gaga song. Since I practice incompetence at an Olympic level, it’d take around 70% of the episode to get me out of bed, find something remotely fashionable to wear and ‘fix’ the birds-nest I call my hairstyle. After much campness, witty gay puns and a musical number, we’d finally embark on our venture.

Now it’s no secret, I enjoy nightclubs as much as I enjoy eating wool, but since my city-slicker friends enjoy the nightlife, I am forced endure many-a-night in these concrete money-grabbing buildings. Since I approach every venue with such distain, my first move is to scout out the nearest corner and shuffle nervously towards it. Correction; my first move is to locate the bar and purchase alcohol, once I have a pint I scuttle off to a dark corner, like  some sort of socially inept, homosexual Gollum.

Once I’ve secured a position in the shadows, I start to fret about my attire. Sweating like a punctured dinghy, I try and convince myself that what I’m wearing is fashionable, that my feet don’t resemble small-boats and that it’s okay I’m not orange and no-one will notice that I haven’t had my eyebrows waxed in a few millennia. I spend the next 45 minutes-or-so darting back and forth to the bar, all the while wearing the expression of a man waking up on his birthday in a prison cell.

Eventually, after the alcohol levels in my blood have shot up, I muster a grin and usher myself out of the corner towards a slightly more populated area. At this point I’d turn to the camera and state that “No-one enjoys clubs; they’re dungeons of misery and the inmates only get through the ordeal by taking mind-altering substances. You don’t like clubs, you like the drugs. Drugs render location insignificant.”

My piece to camera would be interrupted by Jonathan, who proceeds to manically grab my arm like an excited child in the line to Disney Land and drag me off the dance floor.

The next scene would see me awkwardly positioned in the middle of said dance floor. Preening and jigging like a desperate animal, I attempt to lure someone in with my not-so-smooth dance moves. After a few hundred panting pelvic thrusts towards several different guys, I decide to take a sabbatical from the stream of constant humiliation and head back, yes you guessed it, to the bar. Having received little-to-no interest from the folk occupying the dance floor, I figure that perhaps one of the bar staff will be a tad more talkative. I place my order and begin to fire out various complimentary comments mixed with basic chitchat. However, my efforts are met by a cold, unimpressed glare – the sort of glare a taxi driver would give a drunk who refused to move from the middle of the road, before proceeding to mow them over. After failing the impress even the staff, I begin my defeated walk back to the cloakroom; hanging my head in shame like the fat child who is constantly picked last in PE.

So, there you have it. That’s how a standard night out clubbing goes for me. If you wish to get lucky then just do the exact opposite of what I’ve written. Honestly though, ask yourself this: Is the promise of sex really worth the aftermath you’ll be forced to ride out? The majority of the time neither of you will be able to reach climax or keep it up; you’ll be so liquored up merely remembering the person’s name will seem an achievement worthy of a pat on the back. The male physical splendour you see blurry in front of you is merely an alcohol induced mirage; they may look like David Beckham now, but chances are that he’s someone that will snore and drool over your pillow until the earlier hours of the afternoon, before waking up, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling faintly like mouldy ham sandwich.

Or the opposite could happen – like it did for me recently - you wake up next someone who is terrifyingly beautiful. You just want to scream and hurl yourself under a passing truck the moment you lay eyes on this extreme male beauty, lying like an Adonis next to you. You feel your ego shatter and crack as you lie there smelling like a damp curtain, indolent, flabby and generally repulsive. To him I am now nothing more than an articulated mistake.  

The episode would end with the club closing; hoards of “loved-up” couples oozing out the venue doors, all of them sporting the smile worn by somebody that is potentially getting sex. My bus drives past, with a somewhat embittered Chris watching through the water-stained windows as all the folk that had a successful night stagger home. I’d then turn to the camera and say “Oh, shit. I’ve left Jonathan.”