Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like: Clubbing

Outside of the In-Crowd, Things Assholes Like 5 Comments
Courtney Enlow

Courtney Enlow

This past weekend, I, for the first time ever, honored an age old tradition in mating and celebration. A classic expression of the intrapersonal dichotomy between social status and propriety. For the first time in my life, I went clubbing.

Raise the roof, my bitches.

Before I begin on this word journey, I want to explicitly point out that I am in no way referring to the group of revellers with whom I visited said club as assholes. Quite the contrary. Because there are three types of people who attend clubs: the curious, the arm-up gyrators and the asshole. Let’s explore. But first, a tutorial, based on one experience in one club. That is the extent of the experiment, because that’s all I required, and my conclusions are irrefutable.

When you arrive at “da club” as they call it in da clubz, you gather at various points around some manner of red rope thing. In theory, there is an area where a line should be forming, but there appear to be only thirty people in said line. The other one hundred ninety are encircled around the opening. Though they will at some point be ushered into the aforementioned line, years of scientific study has never proven why no one starts in the line. Once you reach the front of the line, you are asked to pay a really large cover fee. Then there is a haggle of some sort, and your money is returned (variables: being female of gender, having at least one member of the group who is a police officer and can bust out her badge).

After all this, you go inside and realize that TV and movies really kind of always got it right. It’s very loud and dark, though there appear to be all kinds of lights all over the place. There are mostly-naked lady go-go dancers on boxes being largely ignored by attendees, save for your the non-dancing pinned pupil guys with waxen complexions sitting alone in the dark (this will be discussed further in “the asshole” section later in this article). You then experience this interesting bit of insanity known as “bottle service.” I’d heard the term before, but never really knew what it meant. Honestly, I thought “bottle service” was what happens when you go to Magic Kitchen and bring your own wine and they offer to unscrew the cork for you. Apparently I was incorrect. Actual bottle service is ridiculous.

How much is a bottle of Ketel One? I’m pretty sure a fifth is like thirty bucks. A fifth of Captain is another thirty. Six or seven for four small Tropicana bottles of orange juice, two bucks for two carafes of Coke (the drink, not the powdery substance – that’ll cost you extra) and maybe another buck-fifty for a carafe of cranberry juice. Throw in some sliced lemons and limes, I’d guess that this tray was maybe a hundred bucks. Pricey, but makes sense.

Again, I’m so wrong. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. Holy fucking tap dance shit.

Apparently, the brunt of the charge is to pay for your table’s own personal waitress. Fun fact: every restaurant I’ve been to has offered me a table with a waitress. When I heard how much the bill was, I wondered at which point someone received several blow jobs. Because six hundred dollars for this girl to appear at our table every half hour or so and fashion someone a drink (and get tongue raped by the wasted girl at the next table) would just be silly. If you’re going to spend six hundred dollars in one night, you better get to wear it.

I don’t want to appear in anyway ungrateful towards the individuals who paid for this evening, because it sure as shit wasn’t me. I had a very fun time. It was certainly a learning experience, and not just a learning experience in the way of “if we’re paying this chick, quit making your own rum and Coke.”

The revelation that clubs are dens of bland sticky iniquity was not exactly earth-shattering. Not like finding out that the guy who played Niles on The Nanny wasn’t really British. I mean, that shit blew my mind. This was more along the lines of “Lindsay Lohan may not be 100 percent sober”. But I learned something else. I learned that club goers are not merely your standard Ed Hardy-wearing douchebags and the girls with visible labias who love them. They are so much more.

The Three Types You’ll Find At Clubs

The Curious
The curious type is easily spotted, but can just as easily be confused with the assholes. Tread lightly. The curious type rarely ventures away from their group and give themselves away via their dancing. Their dancing tends to be small, much like their ever waning interest in the path they’ve chosen for that evening. They are often underdressed and checking their phones/texting. When the curious disappear into a bathroom stall for an extended period of time in pairs, they are not doing what the other types are doing. Rather, they are simply on the phone or talking about boys. When asked how they enjoyed their evening, they will respond with “it was good,” to be said in the exact same tone they used when asked their feelings regarding the movie Idiocracy the first time they saw it and were mildly disappointed.

The Arm-Up Gyrators
When the curious become comfortable, they can easily shift into the AUG, or Augies, as I’d call them if I actually used these terms I just made up. The Augies are generally female. They hit the dance floor, the only people out there not air-humping to attract a mate. In fact, if approached, potential partners will be met with a terse glance and closed off body language. They are out there to dance, and you need to get off their jock, buddy.

The Asshole(s)
Like most things in the annals of “Things Assholes Like”, enjoyment is not limited to assholes. But like all things in the annals of “Things Assholes Like,” boy howdy do assholes love it the most.

Also, like most, these assholes come in many flavors (ew). We have the aforementioned pinned-pupil creepster. Our lurky friend has recently discovered that the liberal application of a fine white powder from the hills of Colombia to one’s nose can make them feel very attractive to women. This in no way makes them attractive to women, but they genuinely feel that it does, and it’s the thought that counts. They will stare at you in that way that makes you keep looking back three or four times, and on the fourth time you lock eyes with them, you finally become so uncomfortable that you have to move to a different spot behind a taller friend so they can no longer see you. To the creepy, this is foreplay. You minx you.

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There’s also the grindy air-sexing ladies in the scant dresses. They are sad and daddy did not love them. They will most likely have sad weepy sex with Creepy McStareslots above, then pray he’ll call again soon. They’re all aspiring models working at Bebe to pay for headshots, most of which are ass shots, ironically.

Of course the classic club assholes are the rich over-gelled douchebags. They will pass you, wipe their hand across your back, and offer you a pre-made drink. If I have to tell you not to take it, then sorry, but you’ve already had to be carried out of a bar on your friend’s shoulder because you mysteriously passed out. Theses are the guys who pay the six hundred dollar bottle service fee every week, and will continue to do so until they are finally arrested for embezzlement / killing hookers and taking their money / selling coke to the creepy dudes.

In summation, I have not been swayed and still prefer the kind of bars where they play more than forty-five seconds of a good song before it launches into a hyper synthesized version of “Ridin’ Dirty.”

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like: Being someone I’d love

Outside of the In-Crowd, Things Assholes Like 6 Comments
Courtney Enlow

Courtney Enlow

Many are the indicators I use to determine whether or not I will like someone. Manner of dress, tone of voice and taste in films all play a part, but I will give you my secret tip right now: the eyes are not the window to the soul; eyebrows and eyeliner-heaviness are.

The clearest sign that I will absolutely despise another person? Someone else telling me that I will love them.

Let me paint you a word picture. You have plans to meet up with an old friend. You pick a locale, perhaps a bar or restaurant, at which you will meet and reminisce about old times. Then, approximately 45 to 60 minutes beforehand, you receive a text from the aforementioned old friend: “Hey, do you mind if my friend Tallulah tags along? She’s having boyfriend trouble and I told her she could come with us.”

With an eyeroll and a sigh, you respond, “No problem!”

Then you get the text of death: “Great! You’ll love her! She’s the best!”

No. No, she is not the best.

When you arrive at the bar, you hug your friend and it’s all love and joy, until you eyes scan a bit and you see the sourpuss with the vodka cran just staring at you. “Oh crapstick,” you think, “that’s her.” Old Friend cheerily introduces you, and she smiles with pursed lips. She does not speak for the rest of the night. She stares off to the side and texts. And that’s when you begin rethinking your friendship with Old Friend.

It’s just a fact. If someone tells me “oh she is great, you’ll love her!” then the she in question will be a boring bitch.

Is it me? Is this some indictment on my personality? “She is the dullest person I know, completely devoid of personality or thought, just a blank expressionless mass of cells and lip gloss; you will love her!”

In fairness, the key here is assuming I’d love anyone. This is my friends’ first mistake. It is through sheer acts of God that I love them. And I do love my friends. I love my friends, my family, ballet, cab sauv, mid-90s alt-rock, lilacs and the number five from Jimmy John’s with extra sauce. I love many things. But it is a very optimistic idea that I’d love just any random person off the street.

I think herein lies the problem: as much as I love my friends, it’s not necessarily a given that I’ll love theirs. Sometimes my friends are better people than I, and they see the goodness inside a person that others cannot find (hence why they are friends with me). Although, upon great thought and memory-bank searching, I’ve discovered that I enjoy the company of most friends of friends, with the exception of the ones who were presented with those fateful words: “You’ll love her/him!”

Now, and this is an important now, as in now-see-here-em-effers, these dreaded sorts are not always boring. Dull and boring I can make do with, as (and I’m sure this will shock the shit out of you) I tend to monopolize most conversations. No, that would be too simple. There is another brand of person who comes with the foretelling of love and awesome. This person is the crazy person.

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The Crazy FoF is always described as crazy, but bless your friend, s/he means it in a good way. But it’s never in a good way. “Omigod, you’ll LOVE her! She’s crazy!” Your friend is obviously intending this as a compliment. “Omigod, you’ll LOVE her! She’s so fun!” But what she’s really saying is, “Omigod, you’ll LOVE her! She’s a problem drinker who publicly urinates!”

The Crazy FoF will always actually be kind of cool until his or her second or third shot. Talkative and quite open. She’ll tell you in detail about the time her ex busted one in her eye. Or he’ll tell you about the time he busted one in his ex’s eye. You can see why your friend enjoys this person. Then after the third SoCo and Lime, he gets louder. She gets feely and you’re pretty sure she will at some point try to make out with you for some guy’s attention. He will probably punch someone and make racist (or rapist) jokes. She will call her ex screaming or loudly call some girl a bitch. He will call his ex crying and call some girl a bitch. They will both become Fratty Magoos in mere moments.

Do these friends have questionable taste in other people? Am I too hard on others? Does everyone just suck and we’re all horrible and nasty and life is just a bunch of years filled with tolerating other people? (In order: probably not, it’s no fun if you answer that one accurately and probably so.)

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Outside of the In-Crowd – How Not To Be An Asshole 1: A Things Assholes Like Helpfulness Guide

Outside of the In-Crowd, Things Assholes Like 5 Comments
Courtney Enlow

Courtney Enlow

You know, I realized that in this series, I’ve been expounding on the things liked by the assholes of this world, without offering and helpful tips for you stave off your own inner-assholiness. And this is wrong of me as someone you trust, a doctor in the field of asshometrics. So since nothing remotely interesting has happened in the field of entertainment since last week, and since if I dedicate a whole post to yelling at Trekkersies who didn’t like Star Trek, I’ll probably be found dead with a little plastic Kirk figurine sticking out of my mouth, I figured it’s time to remedy what I’ve neglected and help you be a better you.

My helpful guide will be a series in itself. The first deals with gender-specific assholery. If you have a gender, you need my help.

1. Machoness is next to cheesiness

I think I speak for all women when I say that we do love ourselves a manly man. We don’t need Bear Grylls, but we don’t want Pete Wentz (and if you’re reading this and you DO want Pete Wentz, then you’re already beyond my help). But some guys have a strange idea of what makes a man a man, and they need assistance.

Any fan of Hot Chicks With Douchebags, or anyone with eyes and access to bars for that matter, can spot a deeb when they see one. Overmuscled, undersized shirt, shaped like an upside down triangle, stupid hair and a bit red-faced, wearing a shirt with some really stupid looking cursive print or metallic design that one would have found at a Hollister seven years ago. They seem to think ladies find this attractive, and for some ungodly reason, some of them do. But as long as these two genders of assholes stick together, they won’t bother the rest of us, so it’s fine.

I’m more concerned with the secretly macho. Guys who look nice and normal and then show random signs of cro-magnonness.

My personal most hated form of this: the I’m-too-cool-and-strong-to-hold-on-while-riding-the-train. Now if you don’t live in a place with public mass transit, you may not know what I’m talking about, so let me describe. Imagine you’re riding to class or work on top of your car, Teen Wolf-style. Now it’s moving and sometimes it takes turns and you’re seriously not able to stay on. And you’re not even dancing and doing backflips, just trying to stand up and not die. That’s basically what happens on the train, except there’s tons of people standing around them, so when they get knocked around, they get knocked into people. Mainly me. On a daily basis, I stand next to some asshat who refuses to hold on (because apparently holding on causes vaginas, and we just can’t have that). Then every time the train shakes or turns, they knock into me and smack me in the face with the latest copy of Runner’s World or Men’s Health.

Men of the world, please stop. Hold on when riding the el, lay off the weight gain powder and HGH, break eye contact when hitting on a girl (because when you just stare at us ceaselessly we get flashes of Patrick Bateman) and go up a damn shirt size. Then the ladies will come a-flockin’.

2. Don’t be “That Girl”

And ladies, when you go a-flockin’, please take precautions to prevent general “That Girl”-ness.

That Girl takes many forms. She can be obvious or live completely in secret until that fateful third Jagerbomb. So you really must look out for the classic signs.

Does she seem to love sports, but doesn’t really say much during the game, and what she does say is often wrong? Does she drink the same beer you happen to be drinking, but does so really slowly and then does a shitload of shots? Does she not have many female friends because “girls are too much drama”? She is the Guy-Friendly That Girl. Girls do not like her because she is completely guy-centric, so she only knows how to fit in with guys enough that they like her (this is why she may also be a self-proclaimed fan of The Girls Next Door and speak of unproven bisexual tendancies). You’ll realize quickly that she has zero understanding of these sports she claims to like, which is all well and good, but she’ll overzealously insist that she loves them. She will be annoying.

Does she get told that she’s beautiful so often that you find yourself thinking “you know, no, she really isn’t”? Does she seem to believe that she’s really cute, with her constant aw-shucks nature? Does she speak of really “cool” bands and movies, even though you’ve only ever seen her listen to Jack Johnson and watch How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days? She is the Fabricated Personality That Girl, caused by years of being told how pretty she is and never having to develop a personality of her own, and then starting to realize that she’s not as pretty as she always thought, and now must actively fight to get people to say it. Tread lightly; she will become clingy and will suddenly love everything you happen to like (and will tell you that she did so long before you’d ever heard of it).

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Is she too interesting? Does she seem to tell you a lot of stories about threats on her life, or has she had three months to live the entire time you’ve known her (and you’ve known her for four years)? She is the Crazy That Girl. Be nice to her, but do not touch or befriend. She will probably try to kill you, or at least call you crying every two weeks about how her dog died (again) until you finally start paying attention to her again.

This is but a small cross-section. So how does a girl prevent dawning That Girl-ness? Well, you really can’t. At some time or another, we are all “That Girl.” We call an ex and get all weepy, or our self-esteem seems to be crushed because we don’t get hit on one night. So the only to really avoid it is to never drink alcohol. But luckily, since most of us tend to only be like that when we’re drunk, the rest of the time we’re okay. The only way for the aforementioned girls to avoid and change? Therapy. Just so much therapy. Just like the rest of us.

Assholiness is avoidable. If you or someone you know is an asshole, please, call my helpline. Thanks and God bless.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like: Judging others

Outside of the In-Crowd, Things Assholes Like 14 Comments
Courtney Enlow

Courtney Enlow

Ladies and gentlemen and Dad, there is something I need to tell you. I am an asshole.

Yes, friends, it’s true. I, your faithful crusader against asshole-ery is in fact herself an inhabitant of Assholedonia. And why, specifically? Because I judge. I’m a judger. A person who judges.

I judge all kinds of things. I judge people who prefer Slater over Zack. I judge people who watch The Hills. I judge people who like cilantro. I judge people who don’t like sweets. I judge people who don’t read. I judge people who prefer pie to cake. I judge people who refuse to give Buffy a try. I judge people who order salads at McDonalds. I judge people who wear flip flops when it’s below 55 degrees. I judge people who drink too much or smoke too much weed and I judge people who have never tried either of the two. I judge people’s shoes. I judge people who still quote Office Space and Napoleon Dynamite. I judge people who don’t like dogs. I judge people who make fun of Britney Spears. I judge people who don’t like Conan. I judge super religious people and people who make fun of religious people. I judge judgers. I judge jugglers. I judge Judy.

And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. In fact, I’m probably judging you right now. I am a bad person.

I don’t mean to be, and in all actuality, I’m pretty nice. There are people in this world who like me and everything. I don’t like being judgmental. I even have a really hard time spelling the word judgment. But it’s the truth of me.

When I said I judge judgers, I wasn’t kidding. I can’t stand people who decide something about a person before they get to know them. I also hate hypocrites. Thinking anymore about these things could cause my brain to implode and kill us all, but I’ll try.

I believe that all judgmental people are driven by one thought: I am right. We of the judginess are staunch in these feelings. And some judgers are wrong and that makes it wrong. But I’m usually right and therefore that makes it okay.

This is the way of the judger mind. I am justified in my negative feelings because they are true.

The thing is, they usually are. I’m usually right. My judgment accuracy is seriously something in which I take pride. I would like a medal and perhaps a parade. You hear a lot of people say things like: “When I met her I couldn’t stand her, but now we’re good friends.” I’ve never had that. And it is indeterminable whether it is because I’m so correct and awesome or because I write people off. But in the mobius strip that is my brain, I only write off people who are lame anyway, so I win.

And this is of course why I am an asshole. But it doesn’t make me wrong.

You meet someone at a party. Everyone at the party loves them and they’re good friends with your friends and you assume you’ll get along with them just fine. Then you start to see that they’re awful. They’re stand-offish. They’re pretentious. They’re boring. And you have no idea why people enjoy this person’s company. This has happened to most of us at one point in time or another. Now, maybe everyone is super justified in liking this person and they can be really great. But why would you want to waste your time getting to know that person when they couldn’t have the decency to be remotely kind or human to you upon your first meeting?

This is how I feel about those that I judge. I know that I won’t like you and you probably won’t like me, and since I can’t be rude to you, I will judge you in my mind. Why’s that so wrong?

I question whether or not it is. I know that it’s an assholey thing to do. I know in the sunshine fairy heart cloud some of you sit upon, we should judge no one and love everyone and I am a bad person for feeling this way.

HA, GOTCHA. You are the one who is the judgey one now.

Look, I could be an open-air bitch. I could be rude and thoughtless to people’s faces. But I’m not. (Usually.) So I just do it behind their backs. Don’t start with me. If someone never finds out how you feel towards them, it’s like it never happened. It’s polite to be two-faced. That’s why I believe in Harvey Dent.

The common thread in these “Things Assholes Like” posts is my general disdain for people who are totally fine with their despicable habits and who possibly even celebrate them. And that is why no asshole is safe from me, including me. I am what I hate and I must do my best to be less so.

But then what the hell would I have to write about? Shit, this whole column would turn to sad dust. So quit judging me for judging everyone and let’s go on about our judgey days. Judge you later.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like 2: Things suck at present time

Outside of the In-Crowd, Things Assholes Like 4 Comments
Courtney Enlow

Courtney Enlow

Yesterday, I had a long talk with my best friend, the organizational psych grad student, about pretension. And she pointed out a classic trait of all pretentious people: they hate everything. They hate everything, she said, because one is more vulnerable to judgment upon admitting that they like something.

Truer words were never spoken. I’ve never heard a pretentious hipster dickbag admit to enjoying anything unironically with the exceptions of bands and movies no one has ever heard of or seen, and they will admit to enjoying these things until the tragic moment in the life of any pretentious hipster dickbag: the unwashed masses begin enjoying that which they like.

When I was in college, it was Rilo Kiley. Then it was The Decemberists, and Deerhoof and MGMT and now I’ve noticed it happening with Fleet Foxes. On the Venn diagram of society, there are two circles: what they like, and what you like. Your circle is what they ignore, but that tiny sliver of overlap is what they hate with the passion of the Christ. And upon discovery of the new mainstream likability of their former-favorite, the following ever-popular words will always be uttered: They were okay. Until they sold out.

This, my friends, leads us right into the second in my hit (shakes head no) series, Things Assholes Like. This week’s edition…

Things that used to be good until you started liking it at which point it started sucking because you suck because I am strong and handsome.

Now this seemingly-specific category is surprisingly vast. Because it includes my personal favorite mark of the asshole: the belief that things suck now, but used to be good. To experience the most notorious example of this behavior, you only need ask any group of people about SNL. At least two of them will respond “it sucks now.” Now get in your time machine and go back each year right up until 1975. You will hear the exact same words uttered by assholes through time. It’s like the TARDIS, if the A in TARDIS stood for “asshole.”

This particular example is interesting because it’s not merely limited to assholes. When I mentioned this week’s subject to my boyfriend, his response was the typical “yeah, but SNL kind of does suck now.” It has caught and it has spread and it cannot be contained and our only hope is to shut this thing down. Jane Curtain actually summed it up best when she appeared on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me (and yes, I recognize that I am discussing my deep love of NPR in my scathing critique of pretentious people, and no I have no response to you other than shut up) and reminded us that a number of the sketches in the so-called classic and infallible early series died and were incredibly dull. And this has been true for every incarnation ever. To that end, the number of “good” sketches have most likely stayed just as consistent.

Sure, there are the exceptions (the Anthony Michael Hall/Robert Downey, Jr. season / the Sarah Silverman/Janeane Garafalo season spring to mind – great talent with nothing to do) but when the same people say every single year how much this show sucks, I have to ask “when didn’t it then?” And they will respond “there’s no way that sentence was grammatically correct” and I’ll respond “then you fix it” and they can’t, and then we’re back at my original question, to which they either have no answer or will inevitably respond (depending on age bracket) “the Mike Myers/Phil Hartman years.” Now who among us would disagree with that? I’m not disagreeing that anything with Phil Hartman is genius (that Sinbad movie notwithstanding). But I remember those years, and I watch them in reruns, and guess what? Some sketches were still boring and lame and died in the studio.

I want to point out that sometimes, these naysayers are correct. For years from the mid-90s on, you could say that superhero movies weren’t good anymore, because they really were terrible up until the first two Spider-man flicks, and even after (I’m looking at you, you Fantastic Four bastards) up until the past year’s delicious comic book movie buffet. Therein lies the difference between assholes and actual people: actual people can admit that things were bad and admit when things are good; assholes can only admit the badness. These are the Internet trolls running around (well, not “running” per se, as I imagine they are quite pale and doughy – “ricotta” is the newly coined term that came out of my conversation with my friend) saying that The Dark Knight was overrated and Iron Man was misogynist and no good. Well sirs, I can find misogyny in my coffee cup, and even I say you’re wrong.

When you really look at it, today’s assholes are just curmudgeonly old people trapped in young people’s bodies. This of course makes sense of the ratty cardigans and enormous glasses in your hipster breeds. And someday they’ll be adorably hateful. But for now, assholes, just shut up and enjoy Andy Samberg and continue to listen to Fleet Foxes even though the rest of us dare to like them. And in the end, we can all agree on one thing: Fantastic Four was truly terrible.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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