'Cause I don't feel like dancing, no sir, no dancing today..

I did not go clubbing this past Hallowe'en, although I was invited. A number of factors led to my decision:

Artificial lineups.

You know when a club is empty, but they keep everybody outside for 40 minutes anyway, just so it looks popular to people driving by?

Expenses.

$20-$25 to get in.

$5-10 for coat check (unless you are some sort of top-secret fembot prototype who does not have nerves, and therefore can stand outside indefinitely wearing a minidress).

$7-$8 for the most basic drink they have.

$20 - $45 for a cab home.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like spending money in order to have fantastic experiences that I will treasure forever. However, at a club, there is:

Little return on investment.

Some prudish Vancouverites avoid clubs for fear that they are hotbeds of drunkenness and sin. However, it is impossible to get drunk in most Vancouver clubs – and I've tried.

First, you have to justify the expense of $7 for a beer or rum-and-coke. Then, you have to wait at the bar for half an hour (or defeat several sharp-clawed, spike-heeled enemies to get to the front of the line). Then, by the time you get your drink, your friends have disappeared and you spend the next half-hour looking for them. So, it’s really an hour’s commitment for that one drink. But what if you want two?

The few people who are drunk likely pounded large amounts of hard liquor right before they walked in the door. They are on a completely different planet from you – no wonder they seem aggressive!

So, you can’t drink, you can't talk to anyone, and you've probably lost most of your friends in the crowd anyway. So what do you do?

You dance.

Now, some people really love dancing. They enter a separate world where all their cares melt away. I am happy for them. But I am not one of them. Just when I think I’m hitting my groove and looking hot, someone helpfully says, “Oh geez, are you okay?” or “You can stop doing the robot now.”

The only environments in which I can dance are 80s nights or synth performances by giant dinosaurs. Then my horrible dancing is retro, ironic, and therefore cool.

When I was 20, I did like the club atmosphere: “Wow, I’m here with my girlfriends, dancing at a club, just like all those trendy women on TV!” But, then the buzz-killing mid-20s rolled around, and I suddenly realized, “I’m paying $75 to dance, stone-cold sober, with girls. And... I’m a girl.”

So, in conclusion, I would rather go to a pub. Get comfortably sloshed at the same pace as my friends. Talk. Play pool. Laugh. Eat greasy food. Mingle. Listen to live music. You know, fun stuff. Social stuff. Not-being-groped-by-old-men stuff.