Club MENtality

Things Flo Rida and I have in common: ...well not much, except for the club's inability to handle us. Tonight, this was proved to me. The decision to go out (instead of watching shutter island, which I'd been looking forward to for weeks... not that i'm bitter) was made around 9, so we rounded up the troops, "snookitized" ourselves, put our glad rags on and got ready to have some fun when the clock strikes one. (But really. 12:00 arrival time + 10 minute bathroom trip + 20 minute position establishment + 30 minute warm up/find rhythm time = 1:00 party time. its elementary.)

When we walked in, gone were the familiar faces of our classmates that we had seen there only two nights before. Gone were the 19-22 year olds looking for a good time on a Tuesday. Gone was the middle-aged man in the yellow shirt disco-dancing all night... okay to that one, I say good riddance. In their places were business men, entrepreneurs, and recent college graduates. In their place was the entire population of Southeast Asia and the Middle East combined. Obviously, we were in for a treat.

Having just previously completed a sociology project, my mind must have been in the analyzing mood, because I couldn't help but categorize every type of person I saw. And I find that in clubs in any areas, these characters will arise.

1. The Target: the man you spot when you get into the club and zone in on. Usually, he just ends up being an object of dance move inspiration and you move on to find other partners, but no matter when you see him throughout the night, those hips start to tell the truth a liiittle bit more.

2. The Magnet: You know how if you hold a magnet above iron pieces and you move the magnet, the iron goes wherever the magnet goes? Yeah. This applies to two types of men; he, who for some unfortunate reason, has chosen you as a target (see number 1), or the one who you're dancing with and his head goes wherever yours goes. You turn to the left to avoid his awkward gaze, he juts his head to the left thinking you're playing hard to get with your lips and this is a test for how far he will go to find your love. HINT: it's not. i just don't want to kiss you.

3: The Dead Fish: There's a version of this for every potentially awkward social situation. The limp handshake, the bad kisser, the ...you know. In the dance club, the Dead Fish is your dance partner who no matter how much you shake it like a Polaroid picture, he doesn't move. He just stands there, maybe bouncing a little bit or doing some other pre-teen dance move. Now, I know I'm a bangin' dancer, so if I'm getting no response, I'ma pull a Jay-Z and move on to the next one.

4. The Wallflower: You know those cool wall decorations that every club seems to have that look like dudes just standing there? Let me let you in on a secret-- you're not gonna find that wall paper at Sherwin-Williams. That's what they are. And somehow, despite their lack of social prowess, these guys seem to get girls to dance with them. But they don't move from the wall. They just stand there being grinded on, admiring the view from the back.

5. The Conversationalist: I must have missed the memo where a club with 80 decibel music was the perfect place to ask someone how their day has been. Oh wait. It's not. So shut up and dance. Okay, you ask me my name. Fair enough. Where I go to school? I'll give it to you. But then once you find out I'm studying Spanish and proceed to have the same conversation we just had in Spanish, that's where I draw the line.

6. The Cinematographer: Son, put yo' camera phone away. I'm just trying to dance up here on the stage (hypothetically, mom), so leave me the duck alone. Please.