Clubbing Inertia

1st August 2007

For as long as I can remember, I've always been plagued by pathetic social-luck when it comes to clubbing. Back when I was a fledgling clubber, when I tried to organize a guys' night out during the scarce Saturday nights we had, I have had growing men turn into weekend-eunuchs and probably hid their hand-phones in their balls-pouches as they suddenly went missing when the time came.

Uni came and went, and apparently my luck got better for a while with the Clubbing Trio (which hence automatically excuses Beng and Flo from any insults in this post), but the brief stint of hope was ruthlessly shattered in the years that followed.

I've become rather jaded I must say, about organizing club outings, always having people pull the lamest stunts this side of Jackie Chan whenever the moment arrived. Excuses and excuses piled up with each idealistic attempt of giving it one more shot. Repetition is the order of the day as the worst excuses get repeated and repeated.

When school's in, its ALWAYS, "cannot lah, got lessons the next day." Well, poor excuse, since I club when I had lessons the next day, and I still do and would now that I have work the next day too, as long as its nothing TOTALLY essential. But yes, you are not me, which means you ain't half as cool, or happening blah blah; and I can forgive you for being a tight-balled-freak for putting books before booze and babes.

So I grow smarter and I pop the question during the holidays, when there is no excuse for school. And the template response is normally two-tiered. First, "who's going?" which somewhat translates to "I got no backbone of my own and assess if it is socially sound for me to go, lest I miss out on anything cool," and then followed by "see how." Of course we ALL know, "see how" is a terrible terrible lie, it is what the politicians use to dangle some false hope in front of you, leave a back door open for themselves, before deciding on a "no."

The worst part of the answer comes when you try to obtain a confirmation from these fuckers, they ask you "so who's going?" again, and after wasting a bloody sms straining your brain to try to list the people going, these pricks tell you at the last minute that they "don't think [they] will be joining you [me]. Have fun! =)" Yeah, I'm sure the smiley face makes me wanna bitch-slap you any less, but I digress.

But I get smarter and smarter, so I learn to avoid this last minute asking thing. The most recent time, I sent out my invitations 3, yes THREE, whole weeks before the actual event, so that I gave all the asses a very huge heads-up before the actual event, to psyche themselves up or whatever these losers need to do to actually step in a club... and yet... I still have to deal with incredible nonsense.

"Oh, I'll go if [so] and [so] go," she said. Apparently, [so] was more than keen on going, but contrary to what was said, she messaged [so] 1 night before to say she didn't feel like going, and [so] conveyed the message to me. My take? I love the transparency of the matter and the weight of the words. Politically well-played perhaps, but deserving of no respect.

Another particular Lazy-Fuck just didn't want to commit up till the last moment, with the excuse of "clubbing is the kinda thing that is dependent on mood, and its better to leave it till the last minute to decide." 2 points, why is it that only clubbing, and not dinner, or movie is mood dependent? And secondly, the "last minute" thing is a fucking lie. Going by the logic, if there is an allowance for backing out at the last minute if asked previously, means that there should be an equal chance of appearing at the club if asked at the last minute right? Considering its a "last minute" decision. But from what I know about Lazy-Fuck, that is an impossibility. So the chances were skewed from the start and she just wanted to leave a backdoor for herself.

The sum of all these parts?

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Clubbing Inertia.

According to Dr. Jer-kyll, Clubbing Inertia is the condition where a person feels a very weak will to club, compared to all other social outings, e.g. dinners or movies. Under the influence of this condition, victims are known to display a fickle sense of will (maybe, see how), form delusional thoughts of self-justification (next-day fatigue, break the sleep cycle, last minute decisions, school, work, etc.) to keep them away from the clubs.

Its still a mystery why some specimens (e.g. cool SMU kids) can make clubbing part of the life and part of their culture to have fun and all, yet others (e.g. lame NUS kids) place artificial restrictions on themselves to keep them away from the clubs. But the current theory in the exploration of Clubbing Inertia points to it being a matter of will. While sometimes it is due to circumstantial and physical reasons, studies have shown that a majority of the time, Clubbing Inertia is self-induced and a totally mental disorder that the victims trap themselves in.

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This theory has been recently proven to be true as the Count and 7 others decided to head down to Zouk for Mambo on the faithful Wednesday, 4 of which (including myself) had to wake up early the morning after. While the road there was a bumpy one, filled with doubt and hindrances (Jeff's IC, Guan Ze's Hair Dye Debacle), in the end, spontaneity and will prevailed as we executed the plan.

While 8 to go is a lot less than what was originally anticipated or projected, in itself, it is quite a good number to go, and the fact that we had a sausage-party-percentage of only 62.5% made the deal even sweeter. Good music (after 2am at least), booze-drinking and wild dancing, is already a winning formula that brings joy to the Count's soul; but with good company as the icing on the cake: priceless.

I had fun, needless to say. And regardless of whether the rest of them truly did or not, to each and everyone of them: Perry, Guan Ze, Jeffrey, Charmaine, Qiuhan, Lay Koon and Beng (yes, you too); eternal thanks for being part of the realization of a long-abandoned ideal.