Bad Disco

Some club nights are like bad sex: you go through the motions, trying to convince yourself you're enjoying it, worrying that you'll just get up and walk out before anything happens, wasting the effort. Nevertheless, if you persist long enough, sheer friction overtakes everything else and there is some climax. But it is an empty one, with no real sense of release.

So it was last night at Home Club. There to check out the post-renovation decor with two friends, I found myself standing in the middle of the dance floor most of the time, allowing the music to pass through me like vapour. All around me youngsters were screaming with excitement as each song began, while I wondered what song could possibly evoke the same response in me, having heard them so many times in this way already. Eventually one came on, and I danced myself into a sincere frenzy for three minutes.

A while later, as we sat outside the club, I thought about how quickly I tire of these things. In 2005, I was going mad for the whole experience. Barely two months ago, I re-embraced it with great enthusiasm. Now, this. Then I had a strange thought: if I fell in love with a girl who recently discovered indie disco, would she renew the experience for me, or would it be a case of right person, wrong time? When we fuck, would I relish her, or just gaze emptily at her young breasts, wishing this had happened two years ago?

Mind Games

We sat on the bench to cool down, you clearly more spent than I.

I don't remember anything you said until the words: "she's flying there again in May."

Sensing an opportunity, I said: "I wonder how people like them keep it going. It must be hard."

"She must trust him a lot."

"And he must trust her a lot too," I added, trying to push the point.

"You never met him, did you."

I shook my head slowly, heavy as it was with unspoken things.

The conversation stopped there as you bent down to tighten your shoelaces, but continued unfolding with menacing speed in my mind, gathering force, a boulder rolling off my tongue, catching your sleeve and dragging us down an exciting, terrifying slope together.

Yes, You Could Say We Know Each Other

I can picture this: him pausing for a moment, thumb resting on the call button, wondering why he has to collect himself. I can sense the swing in his emotions as she tells him she's already having dinner with someone, but he could join in anyway. I don't know what his car looks like, but I imagine it swerving restlessly past rows of occupied lots as he agonises over his thwarted chances tonight.

I feel the lump in his throat as our eyes meet.

For the rest of the dinner, I can only wonder about the extent of his inner struggle: trying to inch his way further into her favour while delicately maintaining a professional distance with me. It's a clumsy performance. But I help him--and perhaps myself--by hijacking the conversation. What both of us separately hoped would be a night with her then becomes a night between us, cordially discussing the intersections in our lives; plumbing the depths of our useless but endless troves of general knowledge; wandering into philosophical territory without really disagreeing (but of course; I wouldn't dream of disagreeing with him). And through it all, she sits on the sidelines, listening in.

It should've made me angry. Instead, it was thoroughly refreshing, not only because of the privilege of seeing him with his defences lowered, but also because being able to engage him in conversation made me feel smarter than I've felt in years (he is a really intelligent person after all; just look at where it's gotten him in life). I parted ways with them feeling strangely invigorated and pleased with myself.

This feeling stayed with me until many hours later, when I imagined her closing the door of his car at the foot of her flat.