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

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.

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.