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| The Entire Clarke Quay Entertainment District. It's Huge. |
What clubbing actually looks like when it comes to college-goers:
1. Dancing is almost non-existent.
Most clubs play electronic house music that pretty much requires fist pumping and head bobbing. Some songs open the door to slow dance, which, in 2014, means grind, a.k.a. rubbing one’s pelvic region against another’s backside. Too many “grinding” songs only lead to people essentially having softcore porn on the dance floor.
2. Faked Socialisation.
Whether you’re trying to get to know someone, order a drink, or ask your friend where the bathroom is, it’s nearly impossible because you can’t hear a damn thing. The music is so loud that you literally have to shout in someone’s ear to be heard. At the end of the night, you usually have no voice; and when you wake up the next morning, you’re nearly deafened by your car radio because you were listening to it on volume 50 at 3 a.m., which seemed low at the time.
3. It is crowded!
Most clubs are crammed so tight that you can’t move, be it to dance or just navigate to the bar or restroom. Everyone is bumping into everyone, drinking are spilling everywhere, and at some point, you will either have your drink knocked out or you will knock someone else’s out. Trying to get a drink at a club is a nightmare. Everyone is pushing, trying to make eye contact with the ONE bartender who seems to be working. Why is it that there is always just one person behind the bar when the club is packed on a Friday or Saturday night?
4. Queues. And Standing.
Queuing to go somewhere where there’s no food or pool table, it just doesn’t seem natural.
5. How to get back home?
6. Pre-Drinks.
The night hasn’t even begun yet, but thanks to the social convention of pre-drinks requiring you to bring you own drinks, you already have to go out and spend around £10 before you even get to the night out. You know you won’t drink all of what you have bought and whoever is hosting the pre-drinks is going to end up with some free drinks for nothing.
7. Losing your friends.
You’ve gotten yourself another drink and start making your way back to the dance floor to get back to your friends, but somehow they’ve all disappeared into thin air. They were right there, where have they all gone? There was no mention of going anywhere else. The next ten minutes are spent aimlessly wondering around through a drunken crowd, unable to see anyone from your group.
I remember telling some mates just before they were flying back home for the midterm breaks how they should probably stall back in Singapore and visit it in daylight because all they've exposed themselves to in Singapore is its clubbing culture.