7: Out Wih The Lads

I hang out with guys quite a lot, I usually tend to have more in common with them, I dunno what it is. Not that I don't have friends who are girls, it just pans out that way, I kinda like it. Starkey's gone home for a few days, so Wednesday (student night) rolls round and I'm the only girl about in our group. No proper plans are made because she usually does that, but Owen and me decide to go out and get hammered, and leave to do so about a half an hour later. We can't go out just the two of us, so we go out with K Floor, which is all guys. Sounds a plan, so I stick on some jeans and a top that is majoritivly clean and go out (which appears to be what guys do when they get ready to go out!). I have a pretty cool night out just chatting and drinking and spending WAY too much money, and wake up this morning feeling like death.

All in all, I had a good time, but we had to go to Wind Street...

Every town or city has a street or an area like Wind Street, it's where all the clubs and bars are. It's a mecca for drunk, orange slags wearing tiny outfits that leave nothing to the imagination when they're getting escorted out of a club by security. 'Macho' blokes out on the pull, all wearing the same jeans/shoes/muscle shirt combo. THE place to go to binge drink your way to being £50 down and in bed with a total stranger the next morning with a head full of hangover and regret. At least they all know it I suppose, but it's just not my thing. It's not the obscene mating ritual, the shitty music, or the dickhead guys that I want to talk about though, it's the girls.

I'd always assumed that it was guys who were the rude ones, the ones who pushed unnecessarily at the bar, who were gonna try and start an argument, the ones who had no regard for people around them, but I'd be wrong.

A good while ago I went to go and see The Steal in Sigma with a couple of guys on the floor. It was one of the more hardcore punk shows I'd been to, and the band were shitting awesome. There's a very simple system at shows: stand at the front if you wanna get jostled and punched and go spare, stand at the back by the bar if you wanna have a pint, listen to the band, and watch the carnage at the front. Needless to say, I was by the bar. It was pretty busy, and where we were stood people would want to get past us. I wasn't being a dick, I was leaving room, someone comes up behind me, touches me on the shoulder to get past, I move, as is the way I'd assume people would do it, as all the guys who went past me did. But the girls! What the fuck, was I the only person with ovaries here who came to see this band rather than hit on guys!? (for the record, I wasn't, but from where I was stood, I was seriously in the minority). Every girl that tried to get past me just barged through like they were the best thing since orange juice, an amount of pint spilling ensued, and that's not even what bothered me. You knock in to someone, you turn around and apologise, it's all fine, we're stood by the bar, we don't wanna start some shit. Not these girls, oh no no! They've made and effort, they've done their hair and the face and made themselves appeal to you, cool punk guys with tattoos! They can clearly do no wrong, they are above such simple etiquette, because they're there to look like they'd have sex with YOU. Coz, you know, you've not come to see the band, all you think about is girls...

Clearly, girls, you're better than me because of this, because I've decided to turn up in the clothes I was already wearing, because I've decided to actually watch the band. You've graced this mild sausage-fest with your presence and we should be thankful! And as such, you're allowed to be a complete tool. I guess I just expected better, people at a show are all like-minded, right, you've all come for the same reason...

Anyway, I forgot about this, it's just a few girls being dumb, I'll know what to avoid in future. So that sat in the back of my mind, not really thinking about it for ages, until last night on Wind Street.

I'm not gonna start slagging these people off saying what they should and shouldn't be doing, because at the end of it, we're all probably just trying to do the same thing: have some fun, forget about stress, and maybe, if it goes well, have it off. So, you know, just do whatever makes you happy. The way I was dressed when we went, I expected to feel awkward and out of place, I expected to get a few looks, and that's fine. I was mostly ignored by guys, and looks I did get were more surprised than anything, certainly not hostile. Most of the looks I got from girls though were hostile, like I was threat to them, I've no idea why, I'm clearly not. Does my being covered up somehow threaten the acceptability of what you wear? I kinda hope so, but I just don't know. That, and at the bar it was PACKED in Varsity, it was fully rammed, everyone there trying to get to the bar, and it was all girls doing the pushing the jabbing with elbows to get to the bar, they do it everywhere. I had one guy be very nice to me about it and literally seconds after he took the space at the bar I give him, there was a girl the other side of him doing that old sly trick of planting your hand on the bar in the hope that somebody moves out the way so you can stand there.

I'm not saying I'm a flawless example of womanhood, far from it in fact, I'm just saying that I find it's usually girls being the proper dickheads, not the guys.