Saturday, January 07, 2006

Lack of Confidence

Bodhi and I went out last night for a dance at The Imperial Hotel, here in my Big Gay Neighbourhood. If you're not from around these parts, or haven't heard me mention it before, The Imperial is a gay bar about 10 minutes walk from my house that has a front bar (video jukebox, pool tables), tiny cocktail lounge, 'Show Room' bar where there are good hourly drag shows between 10pm and 2am, and a downstairs dance bar. It's a cool venue, and only a $5 cover to get into all the other parts of the venue other than the front bar, which is free.

In general it was quite an enjoyable night, but also quite frustrating. The music downstairs in the dance bar was terrible, bar a couple of songs. The sort of pretentious trance-y stuff that would work well very late at night when the crowd has already been taken up to a level of energy. Instead the DJ opened with this and stuck in that groove all night. Normally the dancefloor is packed, but at around 2am (normally a peak) there were less than a half dozen brave souls shuffling around trying to make a silk purse out a sow's ear. The mixing was terrible, with the occaisonal unforgiveable 'dead air' between tracks or really long slow intro.

The drag shows were great, as always, although one of the downsides of the shows at the Imperial is that they often run the same show for a very long time. Consequently the performers sometimes seem to sleep walk through the routines. There was a bit of this last night, but they also deliberately tried to throw each other off, or make fun of stuff ups, so that added some spark back in.

I spent some of the night frustrated with the music, having wanted to dance, and feeling borderline crabby and a bit bored. Early in the night Bodes made a harmless remark about me being a music snob, which for some stupid reason really got under my skin. It wasn't his fault, I knew what he meant, but I let it get under my skin nonetheless.

Adding to the frustration, I got a few smiles from a few guys but I just felt paralysed by lack of confidence to go and talk to them. I was thinking to myself "I never used to be like this, what's going on?" Then it struck me.

This all would have been so much easier, and more fun, with alcohol.

Sad to admit, but true. I kind of missed the lowering of inhibitions that alcohol brings, the (false) confidence to approach guys and the dancefloor energy that comes from a little alcohol buzz. Dutch courage. Of course, this is precisely why I gave it up. I also gave it up because it adversly affects my skin condition (which has now just about gone away completely). Mostly I gave it up because it conflicts with mindfulness from a Buddhist perspective. From being able to think clearly, to think rationally, and to accurately observe my own motivations and actions.

Sadly, last night I could have done with a little less clarity.

6 comments:

Sunshine said...

Awww ... come to Brisbane - I'd dance with ya! :)

Anonymous said...

when i stopped drinking I lost all my seduction strategies. In time i met someone who didn't drink either and we have some very nice clear headed times together. but it took some getting over (maybe 18 months) on my part

Bob

The Other Andrew said...

Thanks Sunshine, I love to dance. The music at the Imperial was surprisingly bad that night though! Bodhi went to The Beat once (that's in Brisbane, yes?) and had a great time.

Bob, thanks for your comment. I've been off the alcohol for about 14 months now, and it's great, but this was the first time really that I felt frustrated by it. I'll take it as a low moment and move on! :-) I do need to develop some sort of alternate 'seduction strategy' though...

Sunshine said...

I used to live at The Beat until I started going out with Sam. Now I only go there once every 3 or 4 weeks. :P

Anonymous said...

That last line is a great one. I don't think that I could give up drinking; mainly because I don't really want to. Oh well! I'll drink one for you!

Bodhi said...

I was somewhat dissapointed with the quality of the music at The Imperial too TOA (it was, in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, craptacular), as I too was also really looking forward to dancing. But there will be plenty of other nights to do so sweetie. One bad night does not a bad venue make.

The dancing boys at the Newtown Hotel were droolworthy, and as always the drag show at The Imperial (not to mention our danceboy Marcello) were great. Not to mention the company of course, the company was awesome.

Yeah, I went to The Beat with my boy Rabbit while recently up in Brisbane back in October, Sunshine. Indeed we had a great time, although as I think I have shared here once before it was funny when we were leaving a number of the front door bitches stopped us to ask how it compared to the clubs in Sydney. Evidently, it was that obvious - lol

Sorry to hear the night was a little dissapointing and frustrating for ya sweetness. We will rectify next time. Ummm, you know how we left the venue at 3am, well moi got to bed after 6am. Terry and Hock were light heartedly paying me out about it. Lets just say the night ended well for me.

Stay off the booze, I like your clarity and the fact that you are an awesome, genuine guy. Someone is sure to pick up on that soon enough. And if its anything like my experience, thats more likely to happen to happen when you are not looking rather than when you are.

*** Smooches ***.