Clubbing is not easy. It takes a toll on you. Dancing and drinking from midnight till five in the morning results in a nasty hangover and dark circles around your eyes the next day – definitely not a good look. And doing that every weekend might be feeding your youthful soul but it’s slowly draining the life and energy out of your aging body. After all, you’re not the wide-eyed 20-year-old that you once were.
The cosmos might have looked so appealing and enticing to those virgin eyes, but after years of doing the same thing, it gets old. You begin to realize that the disco lights, laser beams and smoke effects in the dark of night only mask, ever so temporarily, the ugly truth. When the morning sun starts to permeate the cosmos, you finally see how Orosa-Nakpil unravels. You realize that the person you were dancing with really isn’t all that attractive; that the guy who rejected your advances four hours ago is going home with someone who is clearly a five as opposed to your seven; that the cosmos, with its beautiful lights, beautiful music and beautiful people, is now reduced to a puddle of spilled beer and burnt cigarette butts; that you’re sticky, drunk, disheveled and your high, either natural or otherwise, is wearing off, and you’re feeling the onset of the inevitable crash.
You wonder why you go clubbing at all.
But your fear of missing out insists that you do it all over again the following weekend.
I engaged in that cycle on and off for most of the 2000s until I decided that I had to make a change. The Scene was fun while it lasted but I knew it couldn’t last forever. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. By the turn of the decade, familiar faces were few and far in between. The only ones that were still there were those who refused to grow up or, at least, were in denial that they have grown up. So the script remained the same, but the cast was different. My generation’s turn has ended and it was finally time to pass the torch to the young ones – new wide-eyed and fresh-faced 20-year-olds who were eager to take our place.
But The Scene proved unsustainable for the new breed of scene-queen wannabes. Times have changed. It was the end of an era. The dynamics of clubbing have been tampered with. During my time, going into a club meant exposing yourself. You were forced out of your comfort zone, of your personal space, of your defenses. You had to learn to blend in with the crowd and you had to teach yourself to stand out. You had to balance levity and gravity, tiptoeing the line between confident and arrogant. You had your friends to act as human shields if the situation called for it, but if they were busy making out with a prospect from the other side of the room, you were on your own.
Inasmuch as the cosmos was your home, it was also the home of others just like you. And you were all fighting for space, time, attention. Fiercely territorial. Aggressively vicious. This was not a friendly exercise; it was an epic battle. The hottest and most attractive bois were the top prize, and they were also the toughest competition. They were the belles of the ball and each was worried that it would be his last night at the top of the food chain. Each was cautiously watching the new twink, the boi with the taut skin and toned slender body, the hot property, the flavor of the month. He was both prize and competition. The more established bois had to have him, and they also had to make sure that he doesn’t throw them off balance. They watched and hovered and circled. They were predators waiting to attack. And devour.
The cosmos was your home but it was never a safe place to be alone. So you were never alone. You always had a posse. Looking out into the crowd, you would see that everyone arrived in groups and left in groups. Scene queens were cliquish, guarded and protected by invisible walls, each clique forming a unit, a battalion. You had your own and you’ve learned never to stray far from your home base. The only time you would venture off into the unknown was when someone caught your eye. Only then would you be brave enough to take a few small steps to the center of the room or to the bar and hope, wish, beg, beseech of the Great Fairy in the Sky that She would nudge your prospective Mr. Right Now in the right direction, the only direction that mattered: Yours.
That was always a gamble because it could go either way and your heart would be pounding, as if it was your first time picking up bois in the club even if you’ve done it dozens of times before. You wouldn’t be able to focus on conversations – all you could think about was that boi and how he was making your whole body quiver. The familiar stirring in your loins had completely taken over your entire being. The long psychological tango had begun. Full of anticipation and yearning, the metaphorical dance that you initiated would last for hours. It was intoxicating, exciting, thrilling, daunting. Every move and every little detail from the moment you laid eyes on your target was shrewdly calculated and strategic: The bottle of beer in your hand, your deep exhale as you brush up against his back on your way to the men’s room, the way you turn your head, the manner and number of times you lick your lips. Nothing was to be left to chance.
By then, it was no longer about clubbing and spending time with your friends and dancing and enjoying the music. Screw The Scene. Screw the cosmos. Screw
the pecking order and all the vultures around you. It was about The Singular Goal: To go home and have sex with the target. Everything leading up to that was foreplay. That is, if you actually end up in each other’s arms by the end of the night. Otherwise, prepare for blue balls.
I’ve had my fair share of blue balls. Sometimes, it would be so frustrating that even with all the pent-up sexual energy inside me, I couldn’t masturbate when I got home. I was too tired. I just wanted to sleep for 12 hours straight and forget the rejection as quickly as possible. It was heartbreaking, not because I thought that I could actually have a connection with what’s-his-face-who-rejected-me, but because my ego was yet again bruised. By the time I’m over it, maybe by Tuesday, I think to myself, “Oh well, there’s always next Saturday.”
To read the first part of the series visit www.thestandard.com.ph/lifestyle/pop-culture/203251/scene-queens-and-hipster-bois
I’m @EdBiado on Twitter and Instagram
