Kindly, Step Aside...

It's hard to make conversation at a night club - there are just so many distractions, auditory and visual eye candy competing for your attention all the while you are attempting to get to know someone in a loud, booze-infused atmosphere. Surrounded by beautiful guys and gals - plenty of skins showing, bare midriffs, tight bodies - you can't help but keep your eye on the scene, even when you meet someone new.

After all, how deep of a connection can you really make with someone when Ludacris, Lil John and Flo Rida are all screaming in your ear, demanding that you get "low, low, low"... "lower than you kno'". Bounce, bounce, bounce, you can't help but let yourself slowly catch the fever and the beat of that next infectious hit. Your foot begins to tap the floor, head starts to bob and then when your favorite song comes on and blasts out of those speakers, well, you can't help but interrupt whatever conversation with whomever you're trying to talk to at the moment and yelp in excitement, "Oh, that's my soooooong!"

Some girls make a mistake of looking for a Mr. Right in the hottest club in the city, not knowing or, at least, not wanting to understand that some of the guys are only looking for a one-nighter, a pretty face to forget in a couple of days. Some girls, especially the younger ones, do not realize that some guys may be after only one thing and they may do or say whatever it takes that night to get what they want.

I remember when I was 19, my best friend from high school and I decided to hit up a night club for the very first time. It was such a different environment from anything I had experienced up until that point. Growing up very sheltered in high school, I was, what can be and is conventionally considered to be a nerd and a bit of an outcast. And once out of high school, I was pretty determined to shed my geeky image and transform into somewhat of a social butterfly. Needless to say, hitting up a night club was always on my list of things to do to complete my metamorphosis from an awkward teenager into a cute college girl and maybe win some hearts in the process.

So that night my friend and I made it out to this cheesy but highly popular night club Egypt down by the Delaware river in Philly. I was wearing these hideous purple and magenta pants and a sparkly red top and I remember the tingle of anticipation and uncertainty after I paid my 10 dollar admission fee and got frisked by a female bouncer before I was finally let in inside.

In retrospect, Egypt was always shady even before it started going downhill in its final years before it finally got shut down and replaced by a different joint, but I didn't know any better back then. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread - getting frisked felt like a part of an exclusive VIP treatment. It felt like a rite of passage.

So my friend and I got there early that night and picked a little booth to sit in and watched several raver-types twirl their glow sticks on an empty dance floor - a usual occurrence before your typical club kids invaded the club and drove out the ravers. My friend and I shared a $3 bottle of water we purchased at the bar - stone-cold sober and very excited - we were the prime victims of some hideous French boys with very bad intentions.

"Vould yew like too suck my lollipop?" one of the French dudes slid across the booth seat to move in right next to me, sandwiching me between the guard rail that separated the dance floor and the lounge seating and himself. I glanced at him in mild terror. He was, for some peculiar reason, sucking on a lollipop and I, for some peculiar reason, agreed to lick it.

He seemed very pleased with himself and whispered something or another in my ear, presumably trying to seduce me. I couldn't understand what he said - I was still getting used to the bass shaking the dance floor - so I looked over across the booth table seeking out my friend's help.

Needless to say, it was no consolation to me when I saw that, minutes within introducing himself to my friend, the other French boy was now busy introducing his tongue to hers. I felt disgusted by the whole situation and immediately excused myself and ran off to the bathroom.

Oh were we young and naive and fell for the cheesy pick-up lines and did stupid but silly and flirty things with the boys we hardly knew back then. Neither my friend nor I wanted to sleep with either of those boys that night (or ever) - we danced, we laughed, we had a great time, we went home by ourselves at the end of the night. The French boys weren't terribly heart-broken either - they found their next victims minutes after it became clear that we were not going to fall for their advances.

Now, six years later, I have no doubt that the French guys no longer ask women to suck on their lollipops... at least nowhere outside of their privacy of their own bedrooms. But sometimes I want to go back in time and take it back to that first night at a dance club, when everything felt so exciting and new and my hangovers were so brief and barely felt the next morning.

Of course the things I know now I couldn't have learned without my experienced throughout the years. Right now I can spot a douchebag from a mile away, and if a guy starts playing a game with me, I can move on faster than you can say, "Can I buy you a drink?" and never look back

But back then... back then, times were simpler and all of the heartbreaks and douchebaggery from boys... well, that was yet to come. And sometimes... I just wish I could get some of my naivete back.